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Harris, John Andrews, 1834-| 

NHS raga | 
Principles of agnosticism 

Shel. ARRLLEd to evidences of 


PRINCIPLES OF AGNOSTICISM 


Applied to Bvidences of Christianity 


NINE SERMONS 


TO WHICH IS ADDED A TENTH, ON THE CHRISTIAN 
DOCTRINE OF THE TRINITY 


BY / 
JOHN ANDREWS”HARRIS 


RECTOR OF ST. PAUL’S CHURCH, CHESTNUT HILL, PHILADELPHIA 


New Pork 
THOMAS WHITTAKER 


Nos. 2 & 3 BIBLE HOUSE 
1883 


Copyright, 1883, 
By THomas WHITTAKER, 


TO 
MY FATHER, THE REVEREND 
N. SAYRE HARRIS, 


THIS VOLUME IS REVERENTLY 


DEDICATED. 


PREFACH. 


Tux only apology for publishing these sermons is 
the fact that many who heard them have thought they 
might be published with advantage to some who did 
not hear them. ‘The first sermon was in large meas- 
ure extemporaneous, and was written out afterward 
from the notes used in its delivery. The others are 
printed substantially as they were preached. 

The only claim for originality is in the arrangement 
of material already worked out by others. They 
quarried and squared the stones. I have simply put 
them together into a building differing in shape from 
any I have seen. 

The works which have been used in collecting 
material are the following, as will readily be noted by 
those who are familiar with them : 

Bishop Temple’s essay on ‘‘ The Education of the 
World ;”? ‘‘ The Ancient City,’’ by Fustel de Coulan- 
ges ; ‘“‘ Yahveh Christ, or the Memorial Name,”’ by 
Alexander McWhorter; Dr. Ewald’s ‘‘ History of 
Israel ;”? Dr. C. P. Tiele’s ‘‘ History of Religion ;”’ 
Dr. A. Kuenen’s ‘‘ National Religions and Universal 
Religions ;”’ ‘‘ The Greek Testament ;” ‘‘ The Psalms, 
Chronologically Arranged, by Four Friends ;”’ ‘‘ The 


Vi PREFACE, 


Book of Isaiah, Chronologically Arranged,” by T. K. 
Cheyne, M.A. 

The sermon on the Christian Doctrine of the Trinity 
was suggested by two very remarkable papers entitled, 
‘‘ A Familiar Mystery,’’ by Marston Miles, in the 
New Jerusalem Magazine, (January and March, 
1881). Those who have read these papers will see 
how entirely Mr. Miles’s illustrations have furnished 
the idea of the sermon. 

Last, but by no means least, must be mentioned the 
Bampton Lectures for 1874, entitled ‘‘ The Religion 
of the Christ,’’ by the Rev. Stanley Leathes, M.A. 
It was this book (largely quoted in one of the ser- 
mons), which gave me the idea of the course, and 
which every one should read who desires to see the 
argument fully worked out in one special line. 

It will also be seen by those who take the trouble to 
read these sermons, and who are familiar with the 
Rev. Henry Formby’s ‘‘ Monotheism the Primitive 
Religion of Rome,” and ‘‘ Mythology among the 
Hebrews and its Historical Development,” by Ignaz 
Goldziher, Ph.D., member of the Hungarian Acade- 
my of Sciences, that I have ventured not to accept 
their views. 

Mr. Formby’s conclusion I regard as not proven— 
at any rate by his argument; while, at the same 
time some of his premises are, in my opinion, true. 
Hlis promised larger work, of which the volume men- 
tioned is confessedly but ‘‘a chip,’? will doubtless 
furnish much interesting and valuable matter. But 
his present volume deals too largely with a voluble 
‘* when”? adroitly substituted for an avowed ‘ if,” 


PREFACE. vil 


As to Dr. Goldziher, the sane verdict of ‘* not prov- 
en’’ seems to me to adhere to his conclusions ; and, 
with all humility, in common with Hebrews and 
Christians, 1 venture to hold that Abraham, Isaac, 
Jacob, Leah, Rachel, Bilhah, Zilpah, Samson, Jeph- 
thah, and others contemporaneous with or subsequent 
to them, are historical personages and not characters 
of the ‘‘Sun-myth.’’ Perhaps philosophical writers 
four thousand years hence may gravely argue, after a 
diligent study of what is to us contemporaneous 
American literature, that ‘‘ Red Cloud,”’ ‘‘ Sitting 
Bull,’”? ‘‘ Hole-in-the-day,’’ ‘‘White Hat,” ‘‘ Long 
Hair,” ete., etc., are evidently not names of in- 
dividuals among the Indian tribes, but are plainly 
mere characterizations of phases of an American 
Sun-myth. 

‘“ Oredat Judeeus Apella! Non ego.”’ 

Between the avowed ancestors of a race surviving 
to the present day, whose history is attested by vari- 
ous monuments, physical and literary—(ancestors who 
are by the early records of the race claimed only as 
human beings actuated by impulses divine or human)— 
and the alleged demi-gods and heroes of a poetical Ary- 
an antiquity, the parallel does not seem to hold. The 
conditions of the two differ toto ccelo. 

One word more. Truth has many sides. What 
has claimed to be God’s truth through many ages has 
been assailed by many denials, many and many-sided. 
Much that has been claimed to be divine truth has 
been proven to be simply man’s idea of what divine 
truth is, and has in time been shown to be full of hu- 
man imperfection. The heresy of one age has been 


Vill ; PREFACE. 


accepted as the truth of the next, when men have 
had a clearer light in which to see. 

Let us be scientific in our searches after truth : and 
until some better reason can be given for believing the 
religion of the Christ to be merely human in its origin 
than for believing it superhuman, it seems to me that 
a true science must accept it as essentially divine. I 
am not speaking of the many miserable travesties of 
it which imay claim the. name of Christianity, nor of 
the many elaborate schemes of dogma which may 
claim to be the whole truth, while really they are sim- 
ply human conceptions of it, and therefore liable to 
error ; but I am speaking of that new power of a di- 
vine life in the world which historically dates from Jesus 
the Christ, and which the greatest Christian that ever 
lived, Paul the Apostle, claims to be ‘‘ the power of 
His resurrection ;’? a power which has vindicated for 
itself through eighteen centuries a far-reaching vitality 
among men equalled by nothing else under heaven. 

Je Ae 


St. Paut’s Rectory, Cuestnut Hirt, 
PHILADELPHIA, Christmas, 1882. 


SERMON 


I. 
Lt 


aaae 


VI. 
VII. 


VIL. 


TABLE OF SUBJECTS, 


Preliminary considerations on the character 
of human belief, 


Preliminary considerations on the character 
of conclusive evidence, . : 


Hebrew national exclusiveness evolving the 
gradual development of a true Monothe- 
istic Idea capable of universal reception, 


. The origin and development of the Messi- 


anic Idea, 


_ Greek and Roman development in the line 


of capacity for receiving a true Monothe- 
ism; said capacity being evolved out of 
an historical and fundamental incapacity, 


The same subject continued, .- 


The education of the world by Hebrew, 
Greek, and Roman, in the development, 
respectively, of (a) Conscience, (0) Taste 
and Reason, (c) Disciplined Will, . 


The effect in connection with the cause, 


. The Resurrection of Christ, 
. The Christian Doctrine of the Trinity, 


PAGE 


11 


21 


30 


56 
68 


I, 


PRELIMINARY CONSIDERATIONS ON THE 
CHARACTER OF HUMAN BELIEF. 


Acts XXVIII, 24.—‘*Some believed the things which were 
spoken ; and some believed not.”— Second lesson for morning. 


Preached August 13, 1882, in St. Paul's Church, Chestnut Hill, Philadelphia. 


In presenting for your attention some considera- 
tions upon the evidences of the divine origin and 
therefore paramount authority of ‘‘ The Religion of 
the Christ,’’ it may be well at the outset to offer some 
reasons for dealing with such a subject in speaking to 
a congregation of Christian people who might, natur- 
ally, be supposed to have their minds made up on that 
point : and more especially to explain why the sub- 
ject will be treated as I propose to do. 

As to the latter point, it may be permitted to say 
that if my lot were to minister to uncultured people in 
the backwoods, it might be out of place to present the 
matter thus. It might be unadvisable to suggest 
doubts which otherwise would not be likely to arise in 
their minds. But, called as I happen to be, to min- 
ister to a congregation abounding in literary tastes and 
of a wide range of reading, and in Le eortt 
thereupon, the case is different. 

In these days of upheaval of thought and question- 


12 PRINCIPLES OF AGNOSTICISM 


ings concerning many things in former days consid- 
ered settled by an authority rather submitted to than 
interrogated, much is said and written, both in prose 
and poetry, in public and in private, which has a ten- 
dency to foster a half-belief, if not a polished and cul- 
tivated unbelief. At no previous time has there been 
so wide a diffusion of such literature ; at no previous 
time has human thought been so daring and indisposed 
to submit to any mere authority as such, or to any 
settled order of things simply because it has come to 
be considered settled. : 

Then, too, there are many practical problems of life 
which have what is called an unsettling effect upon a 
religious belief which rests simply upon authority. 
You and I are daily brought, in one way and another, 
into contact with such problems—problems which in- 
volve the question of God’s goodness, which induce 
doubt whether there has been any revelation of God to 
men. 

Now, it seems to me, that to people who may be thus 
affected, either by reason of their reading, or talking 
with others, or because of their reflections upon life’s 
manifold sad problems, it may be a comfort to feel sure 
of one thing—that thing being the fact that the religion 
of the Christ is really of divine origin, and therefore 
paramount authority ; for if it be, it presents a clew 
to guide through many a mazy labyrinth—a key to 
open many a door in ‘‘ Doubting Castle,’ and secure 
freedom from the clutches of ‘‘ Giant Despair.” 

Satisfied as to its divine origin, men will be content 
to render obedience to its precepts in the present, and 
patiently wait for that future when “we shall know 


-_ 


* 


APPLIED TO EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 13 


even as also we are known,’’ even though they have 
to confess with that sturdy and hopeful believer, Paul 
the Apostle, that ‘‘ now we see by means of a mirror, 
in ariddle.”’ 

Let us have the one certain anchor, and the tossing 
of the waves or the drift of the tide will be harmless. 

In discussing questions of belief, and of that cer- 
tainty upon which a sound and true belief should be 
founded, we must be careful to discriminate between 
two sorts of certainty, which I shall call—using the 
terms in their popular acceptation—(a) mathematical 
certainty, and (6) moral certainty. As I understand 
the meaning of those terms, mathematical certainty is 
the result of the indisputable demonstration of a truth, 
the contrary of which is an absurdity; as, for in- 
stance, the truth that the sum of all the angles at the 
point of intersection of two or more straight lines is 
equal to four right angles. Mathematical certainty 
may also be axiomatic in its character, as, e.g., the 
certainty that the whole is greater than any of its 
parts, and that the whole is equal to the sum of all its 
parts. 

This kind of certainty, as also the demonstration 
upon which it rests, is inapplicable, because impos- 
sible, in matters of religious belief. 

By moral certainty, I understand that certainty 
which is the result of evidence ‘‘ founded on the prin- 
ciples we have from consciousness and common-sense, 
improved by experience.’’ Religious belief or faith 
(at least in our day), has nothing to do with mathe 
matical, but only with moral, certainty : and, in this 
respect, what all religious beliefs claim for them- 


14 PRINCIPLES OF AGNOSTICISM 


selves, as represented by Jews, Christians, Moham- 
medans, Buddhists, Brahmins, or any others, includ- 
ing unbelievers, is on a par as to the sort, not the de- 
gree of certainty. 

Even Gideon’s fleece, wet or dry, simply presented | 
to his senses phenomena which to him were the basis 
of moral certainty as to his divine call to the work 
which he performed with such whole-souled faith and 
thoroughness. 

If, therefore, the divine origin and authority of the 
religion of the Christ can be shown to rest upon an 
undoubted moral certainty, its paramount claim 
is established ; and I may state here, that it is not 
intended so much to prove a negative as to other 
faiths as it is to establish a positive for the religion of 
the Christ. 

This subject furnishes material for more than one 
sermon, probably for many ; in the construction of 
which I claim no originality of treatment : simply the 
putting together of material worked out by others, 
and gleaned here and there in the course of study or 
reading, to the strengthening of my own faith amid 
the questionings of the day and in view of the various 
problems of life which are always puzzling when one 
allows himself to think. 

With this by way of introduction, let us proceed to 
matters more directly connected with the text :. 
‘* Some believed the things which were spoken, and 
some believed not.”? This is, all things considered, 
a perfectly frank statement. 

The writer is describing an interview between Paul 
the Apostle and those who came to visit him after his 


APPLIED TO EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. LS 


arrival at Rome, in consequence of his appeal to 
Cesar, at whose judgment-seat alone he could reason- 
ably hope for justice. 

Upon his arrival—or soon after—Paul had sent for 
the chief men among his fellow-Israelites at’ Rome, to 
explain to them the precise reason for his appeal. 
The conversation seems to have turned upon a new 
way of thinking about religious matters which had 
lately appeared in the world, and rumors concerning 
which had reached Rome, rumors in fact not very 
creditable ; for the visitors said, ‘‘ we desire to hear of 
thee what thou thinkest ; for as concerning this new 
sect, we know that everywhere it is spoken against. ”” 
An arrangement was made for a future visit, and 
many presented themselves at his lodging, where the 
conversation and argument lasted all day. As far as 
we can tell from the record, both the host and his vis- 
itors were of the same way of thinking on one point ; 
and that was, the authority of certain ancient records 
of Israel. Paul and his visitors and questioners 
agreed in that. Whether the records had that 
authority or not is not the question. The authority 
was conceded on both sides, and furnished the common 
ground on which both could stand. But here the 
agreement ceased. It does not appear that Paul used 
any arguments to this audience drawn from other 
sources than those records, however he had argued 
when dealing with men who did not recognize their 
authority. He certainly had a thorough acquaintance 
with the contents of the records, and from his well- 
known and proven ability to say clearly what he meant 
to say, it was probable that no clearer or more forcible 


16 PRINCIPLES OF AGNOSTICISM 


statement of the inferences he drew from thein could 
be made than he made; and yet the historian who 
briefly describes the interview candidly says that the 
only outcome of Paul’s argument was this: ‘‘ Some 
believed the things which were spoken, and some be- 
lieved not.”? The inference he wished to draw was 
that he who was known among men as Jesus of Naza- 
reth was really the Christ, the Messiah, whom the rec- 
ords he appealed to had predicted. It is to be noted 
that the evidence was the same for those who did and 
those who did not believe. _ 

One of the most curious phenomena of human be- 
lief, z.¢., the ‘‘ assent to what is credible as credible, ”’ 
as a ground of human activities, is that beliefs and 
conclusions differ upon the same general evidence. 

A perfectly familiar instance of this is given by the 
different organizations of Christendom, where differ-— 
ently formulated dogmas and activities prevail, while 
each organization appeals to the same authority which 
all the others appeal to, the New Testament Script- 
ures, and the way in which they were received and 
acted upon by the earliest generations of Christians. 
One organization claims that the whole Church should 
be under the direction of a single bishop ;_ others 
claim a parity in the Episcopal order, the presiding 
bishop in each national church being as it were a 
‘primus inter pares ;’’ other organizations claim a 
parity of all ministers. Some hold to the doctrine and 
practice of baptism by immersion and only admit 
adults to that sacrament ; while others consider that 
baptism by sprinkling or pouring is a valid sacrament 
even when administered to infants, 


APPLIED TO EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 17 


These are practices. The same or even greater 
diversity exists in regard to doctrines, and those, too, 
which are claimed to be fundamental. The curious 
part of it all is that, differing as they do in practice or 
doctrine, each claims to be right in following the teach- 
ing of the one authority of the New Testament Seript- 
ures, 

With regard to this diversity of belief and practice 
under this one authority, it may be said that ‘‘ while 
there are diversities of operations,’ yet ‘it is the 
same God which worketh all in all,’’ in the essential 
truth or force which embodies every ‘‘ operation”? 
under the name of a Christian faith. 

But the question of believing or not believing goes 
farther than the question of ‘‘ diversities of operations ”’ 
under the Christian faith, and involves that of the 
divine origin of the religion of the Christ itself. We 
might wish that this were not so. But it isso: and 
it will not do for Christians of whatever name to 
ignore the fact. Nor will it do to permit vituperation 
to take the place of argument, as is too often the case. 
It will not do to sneer at or pity or ignore objections 
to, or denials of, the claim that the religion of the 
Christ is of divine origin. The objections and the 
denials exist. If they are to be met at all—and be met 
they must-—it must be by argument ; by showing that 
there are better reasons for believing that the religion 
of the Christ is of divine origin than for believing that 
itisnot. If those reasons cannot be produced, then the 
only fair thing, the only righteous thing, the only 
manly thing, to do, is to admit that the disbelievers in 
its divine origin have the better case of the two: and 


18 PRINCIPLES OF AGNOSTICISM 


even if it be not (as it is) the only fair, righteous and 
manly course, it is the only course which can preserve 
to an honest man his self-respect ; and to present bet- 
ter reasons for believing than for disbelieving is the 
only course which will have a particle of weight with 
many who are inclined to disbelieve, It is useless to 
sigh for the return of the “ ages of faith,’’ so-called, 
when faith meant nothing more than a blind unques- 
tioning submission to authority. It is necessary to 
show that faith is, logically, truer and better than 
unfaith, 

We stand face to face at this day with a most im- 
portant fact. There are computed to be, approxi- 
mately, of 


OWS Sapo ace ee re igh 7,700,000 
Christians’ 255 iis Saha ie 388,200,000 
Mohammedans: se eee eo 122,400,000 
Shintos, Buddhists and followers of 

Conducing ii ate vis ea ped 482,600,000 
Brahminical Hindoos............ 120,000,000 
PATS OCR 96s can't as aides nk de ae 1,000,000 
And all others, Pagans, and not 

epnmerated.. viv yaw A ae ee 227,000,000 
Out of an estimated total of the 

world’s population............. 1,348,900,000 


(The above figures are taken from Rand, McNally 
& Co.’s Atlas of the World, Chicago, 1882.) 

The question naturally arises, and cannot be put 
aside as one which need not be answered, ‘* What 
ground has the Christian for believing his faith to be 


APPLIED TO EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 19 


the true faith ?”’ ¢.e., of divine origin and paramount 
obligation. 

Obviously, the evidence is of two general kinds 
(such as it is) for all religions. 

(a) Internal. 
(6) External. 

It is not to be denied that internal evidence has a 
certain weight not to be despised. But an appeal to 
it is burdened with the weakness that arguments based 
upon it have weight principally to. those, in each of 
the world’s different religions, who are already be- 
lievers in their several systems. A Mohammedan is 
perfectly satisfied with Mohammedanism, and thinks 
that the best religion; a Buddhist with Buddhism ; 
and so on. The matter is largely one of subjective 
appeal rather than of objective demonstration. Each 
one says (and feels) ‘‘ my religion is the best ;’’ and 
while the belief of believers may be strengthened, the 
objections of gainsayers may not so readily by an ap- 
peal to internal evidences be weakened. While not 
by any means objecting to the force of internal evi- 
dence as far as it can go—and it goes a good way—it 
seems to me that the present aspect of the case de- 
mands rather an appeal to external evidences ; 7.e., 
the presentation of admitted facts so grouped together 
as to produce a cumulative argument in favor of one 
conclusion rather than another. 

For the divine origin and paramount authority of 
the Christian faith, the external evidence is far more 
complete now than it was in St. Paul’s time: and if 
certain undoubted facts and admitted effects can be 
shown to have had as an adequate cause, one which 


20 PRINCIPLES OF AGNOSTICISM. 


under all circumstances of the case could only have 
been a plan exceeding all possible human plans in its 
character, the case is fairly made out as a case of 
moral certainty that the religion of. the Christ is of 
superhuman—i.¢., divine—origin, and of paramount 
authority for you and for me. 


If. 


PRELIMINARY CONSIDERATIONS ON THE 
CHARACTER OF CONCLUSIVE EVIDENCE. 


Acts XXVIII, 24.—‘‘Some believed the things which were spo- 
ken, and some believed not.’’ —St. Luke in Acts. 

Luke I, 4.—‘‘That thou mightest know the certainty of those 
things wherein thou hast been instructed.’’—St. Luke in Gospel. 


Preached August 20, 1882, in St. Paul's Church, Chestnut Hill, Philadelphia. 


Tu “certainty” in this connection, as we saw last 
Sunday, is a moral and not a mathematical certainty ; 
and, of the two kinds of evidence upon which such 
certainty rests, we will at first be occupied with the 
external, which, as already remarked, is more com- 
plete now than in St. Paul’s time, and for obvious 
reasons. 

I. It is necessary to premise a statement concern- 
ing the kind of external evidence to be adduced, both 
in order that the course of the argument may be the 
more clearly seen, and also by reason of the fact that 
the necessities of. the argument in the present day re- 
quire the ignoring of many things which much of 
what are called ‘‘ Christian evidences,’’ have insisted 
upon maintaining. 

One of the systems of thought opposed to Christian- 
ity, and indeed to any “ revelation” at all, is Agnosti- 
cism, a system so recent that the word does not appear 
in Woreester’s Dictionary of 1860. 


992, PRINCIPLES OF AGNOSTICISM 


If I understand the meaning of the word “ agnos- 
tic,’’ it is ‘‘ one who denies the certainty of anything 
not evidenced to the senses, or which does not rest 
upon mathematical demonstration.”’ 

One peculiarity, as it seems to me, of this system of 
denying-philosophy is, that while freely applied to and 
considered conclusive by its advocates in matters which 
relate to religious faith, it somehow fails to operate in 
the practical affairs of daily life ; the relations and proc- 
esses of which rest, even with agnostics, on faith, or 
belief, z.¢., ‘‘ assent to what is credible as credible, ”’ 
upon evidences not furnished by the operation of the 
senses or by mathematical demonstration, but upon 
evidence such as is capable only of producing moral 
certainty : which it will be remembered is all T have 
claimed for the religion of the Christ. 

An English agnostic, for instance, supposing him to 
be acquainted only with the history of England, would 
hardly deny the fact or the results of the revolution of 
1688 ; nor an American agnostic, in like manner, the 
fact or the results of the revolution which changed the 
colonies of Great Britain into the United States of 
America ; nor would under like circumstances a F rench 
agnostic dispute the fact or the results of what is 
known in history as the French Revolution ; and yet 
a belief in these must, from the nature of the case rest 
upon evidences which are denied to have validity 
when applied to the affairs of religious belief. Nor , 
would any one of the better kind of agnostics be con- 
tent to apply the principles of his non-belief in deter- 
mining the question of his parentage, or of such a one 
being his brother or his sister ; although assent to the 


APPLIED TO EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 23 


facts involved evidently rests upon other evidence than 
that which is required by agnostic principles. 

What there might be differences of opinion about, in 
connection with the historical events alluded to, would 
be the goodness or otherwise of the cause involved on 
either side; as would be shown, e.g. by one set of 
writers calling them ‘‘ Revolutions,’’ and another set 
calling them ‘‘ Rebellions ;” and in the case of family 
relationships there might be questions as to the good- 
ness or otherwise of the relatives ; and in determining 
either of these to be held as a verity, the domain of 
the moral must be entered, and conclusions must par- 
take of the nature of moral, not mathematical cer- 
tainty. 

It is proposed then, to deal with evidences for the 
divine or supernatural origin of the religion of the 
Christ, simply upon the principles which agnostics ap- 
ply in practice, whatever they may do in the vagaries 
of theory ; that is, to receive alleged facts upon credi- 
ble evidence, and, if those facts be thus established, 
to seek to establish the moral certainty of an adequate 
cause for what is admitted to have some cause. 

Obviously, to enter fairly upon such a course of 
argument, it is necessary for argument’s sake, at the 
very start not to claim that the Scriptures are in any 
way inspired ; for otherwise it could be claimed that 
any other course would be a complete begging of the 
whole question. It is also necessary not to appeal to 
what are commonly called ‘‘ miracles ;’? for that is a 
prominent point in dispute. 

The Scriptures will be appealed to simply as existing 
literary remains, with, if you please, in many instances 


—_ 


24 PRINCIPLES OF AGNOSTICISM 


a disputed authorship and, within certain limits, an 
uncertain age. 

‘¢ Miracles ’’ will not be appealed to in evidence, to 
establish allegations of fact or to determine moral cer- 
tainties ; although the arriving at a moral certainty in- 
dependently of them may go far to make a belief in 
them not the foolish thing some people think. 

It is hoped that dealing with the subject in this way 
will avoid that arguing in a circle which has some- 
times characterized the so-called ‘‘ evidences of Chris- 
tianity,’? and which a certain kind of modern unbelief 
can make short work of in any argument. 

With these things premised in order to render more 
clear positions which will be taken, let us pass on to 
consider those positions. 

II. In the first place, the appearance in the world 
of the religion of the Christ is in many respects a fact 
unique in history. 

It was and is a fact, account for its origin how we 
may; as much a fact as the appearance of Mosaism, 
with which system it was and is intimately connected ; 
or as the appearance of Buddhism, with which it is 
getting nowadays fashionable in some literary circles to 
compare it ; or as the appearance of Mohammedanism, 
with which it seems about to enter upon a fierce 
struggle. 

Furthermore, the appearance of this fact in the world 
is as definitely settled as to time as is the beginning of 
the Roman Empire, or as is the hegira of Mohammed ; 
very much more definitely settled than the appearance 
of Buddhism, inasmuch as there is a difference of 
opinion among Buddhist authorities as to the date of 


APPLIED TO EVIDENCES oF CHRISTIANITY, 25 


the alleged Buddha’s death, the extreme limits of that 
variation being, as it is stated, two thousand years ! 

There can be no reasonable doubt then, either as to 
the appearance of this fact of the religion of the Christ, 
or as to the precise time, within a very few years, at 
which it appeared. | 

As an indisputable fact it had an origin which, using 
the terms in their ordinarily received sense, was either 

(a) Natural, or 
(6) Supernatural. 

If natural, it was a development, growing out of 
natural causes, of the religious and moral condition 
of the world at the time and place of its appearance - 
and early progress. 

As a matter of moral certainty this is impossible, 
and for the simple reason, according to universal con- 
current testimony, that the religious condition of the 
world, not only in the heathen part of it but also to a 
great extent in the Jewish part of it, Was as a matter 
of fact producing, naturally, developments and results 
directly opposed to the principles and teaching of the 
religion of the Christ ; persecuted it when it ap- 
peared ; and so far from producing it asa development 
actually succeeded to a great extent in corrupting it, 
whether or not we consider it to have been a spiritual 
force supernaturally introduced. 

The facts of the case are against the supposition that 
it, had a natural origin, if we regard it, as we must, a 
spiritual force of some kind which produced actual 
results. 

(6) But if the origin of the religion of the Christ is 
to be considered a supernatural one, we must be pre- 


26 PRINCIPLES OF AGNOSTICISM 


pared to show, as a matter of moral certainty, why and 
how, when we ask men so to receive it. Hvidently— 
to repeat somewhat—in view of the nature of objec- 
tions which have to be considered, whether we like to 
or not, it will not do to appeal to the authority of in- 
spired writers as such, because it is just such authority 
which the objectors decline to receive, and the argu- 
ment would come to an end at once. Inspiration is 
just a main point in dispute. To concede that would 
be, for objectors, to concede everything. We are 
compelled to approach the subject in another way, and 
simply claim the application of such principles as 
guide men to conclusions in the ordinary matters of life : 
generally guide them as ordinary and safe rules of 
action and belief. I say generally rather than univer- 
sally, because there are some people who never, if they 
-ean help it, think, reason, or act, according to gener- 
ally received rules ; a class for which, in the American 
language, there has lately been invented a very short 
but very expressive name. 

It cannot with truth be denied that among those 
rules which generally guide men, as being ordinary 
and safe rules of belief and action, is this one— 

‘‘ Whatever bears marks of design presents, just so 
far forth, evidences of design.”’ 

This rule of evidence guides thought and action, in 
intricate and knotty questions, involving often the 
lives and fortunes of men, in that place where the » 
greatest security is supposed to exist for life and 
fortune—a court of justice, where logic is sup- 
posed to be most remorseless in its accuracy, and 
where evidence tainted with uncertainty is supposed 


APPLIED TO EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 27 


to be valueless. That is the theory, whatever may 
be the practice. 


If, then, such facts can be produced as would, in any 
case, generally be accepted as evidences of ‘a design 
which under the circumstances would necessarily be 
beyond the power of what men know and speak of as 
natural forces or causes, it is fair to demand that such 
evidences be accepted for another origin of the religion 
of the Christ than a natural one ; and in such ease it 
is harder to account for its coming into being on any 
other grounds than supernatural. In short, the idea 
of the supernatural must be created in order to account 
for it. 

And here let me guard against a possible misunder- 
standing of terms. 

When I speak of the religion of the Christ. in this 
connection I mean simply that spiritual foree which 
came into the world, in, by, and through the person 
and work of Jesus of Nazareth who was proclaimed to 
be the Christ of God ; a spiritual force which either 
modified, antagonized, or subdued other spiritual 
forces then and afterward in existence: a spiritual 
force which, in the case of a peculiar and distinct peo- 
ple, to the extent to which it was received, modified 
the existing system of Mosaism ; which in the case of 
others than that people offered itself as a substitute 
for it ; and which found itself in a death-grapple with 
other spiritual forces then existing in the world, and 
emerged from the struggle wounded, yet triumphant. 

Iam speaking of the original force itself, and not 
any particular form in which that force was exercised 


28 PRINCIPLES OF AGNOSTICISM 


or symbolized or systematized by men who had the 
force within them. All these were, have been since, 
and are still, the development of the natural, and can 
be accounted for in that way: or, to vary the state- 
ment, whatever the treasure was and is, it was and is 
held in earthen vessels of a style and finish ranging 
from common clay to the finest porcelain. Iam speak- 
ing now of the treasure, not the vessels holding it ; 
the marring or breaking of which cannot rob the treas- 
ure of its value, although it may thereby be exposed 
to the risk of loss. 

You will readily see that all which has been said is 
simply preliminary in its character. It is necessary 
to define terms and to establish positions at the begin- 
ning. 

I shall next ask your attention to certain historical 
facts, without assuming at the present stage of the 
subject that there is anything about them out of the 
ordinary character of natural facts, strange indeed, 
perhaps, but not supernatural as to their causes, when 
considered individually. What would be the most 
easy way of accounting for them when looked at, not 
singly but, in their relations to each other and in re- 
gard to the sequence of their combined results, will 
be for you to determine after their presentation has 
been made. 

They will be found, I think, to show the life of 
different nations and races converging by entirely dis- 
tinct lines to a certain point. We shall have to follow 
up each line separately, and then gather them collec- 
tively ; if each is a wonderful story in itself and apart 
from the others, their combination is a sequence far 


APPLIED TO EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 29 


more wonderful ; so full of wonder that the absence 
of a design and a supernatural designer is harder to 
account for on natural principles than the continuous 
presence and omnipotent force of both. 

What the design was the story itself makes plain. 
Who the Designer was, the design manifests. 

Some may call Him ‘‘ The Unknowable.”’ I prefer 
a shorter name—‘‘ God.’’ 


III. 


HEBREW NATIONAL EXCLUSIVENESS ~ 


EVOLVING THE GRADUAL DEVELOP- | 


MENT OF A TRUE MONOTHEISTIC IDEA 
CAPABLE OF UNIVERSAL RECEPTION. 


Deut. IV, 7.—‘‘ What nation is there so great, who hath God so 
nigh unto them, as Jahveh, our God, is in all things that we call 
upon him for ?’’ 


Preached, August 27, 1882, in St. Paul’s Church, Chesinut Hill, Philadelphia. 


Wuar has already been said in the two preceding 
sermons on Christian evidences has been in the way 
of general preliminary ; a clearing away of the ground 
upon which the argument is to be based. 

In turning now to the history of the Jews it will 
be necessary to introduce some preliminary considera- 
tions bearing more particularly upon this branch of 
the subject, so that the argument itself may not be in- 
terrupted in its progress when once begun. 

I. The first of these is, the very long time which 
elapsed from the alleged beginnings of the race-his- 
tory in Abraham to the time at which it was alleged 
that the promises of spiritual blessings made to Abra- 
ham were fulfilled in Jesus of Nazareth. It may be 
asked, ‘‘ If the religion of the Christ is the true one, 
why was God so long in allowing men to know any- 
thing about it, if, as its believers assert, it is a matter 
of such vital importance and really comes from Him ?” 


PRINCIPLES OF AGNOSTICISM. 31 

The answer can only be, ‘‘ It is impossible to say 
why ; but one thing it is very possible to say, viz., 
that the slowness of spiritual development, with all 
its temporary ebbs and flows, is precisely analogous to 
what the most recent discoveries of science show to 
have been the slowness of physical development in. 
the universe, together with the survival of the fittest. | 
One plan (if there be a plan), seems to run through 
what believers claim to be the spiritual and the physi- 
cal works of God, what non-believers claim to be sim- 
ply natural phenomena. 

The slowness of the working is no argument against 
either the one or the other set of results having a 
supernatural origin. Just why either or both should 
be slow, no man can tell. 

II. A second preliminary consideration is, that, in 
view of the length of the national history of the Jews 
up to the entrance of the Christian era, the historical 
records are very meagre. Long periods of time are 
passed over with very brief mention, or with but 
some one or two topics of interest within them treated 
at any length. 

We shall better realize the length of the national 
life of the Jews, as compared for instance with those 
of Greece and Rome up to the Christian era, if we 
but remember that the undoubtedly historical epoch 
of David and Solomon, an epoch of the history ever 
afterward looked back upon fondly as the culmina- 
tion of the power and glory of the nation as such, cor- 
responds very nearly with the earliest date assigned 
to the birth of Homer, and with the time at which 
Eneas is said to have come into Italy—for both the 


32 PRINCIPLES OF AGNOSTICISM 


Greek and the Roman, then, the age of fable which 
long preceded any authentic record. 

III. Another consideration concerning the Jewish 
records is that the result of some modern scholarship 
throws, it is stated, grave doubt upon the antiquity of 
some portions of the Old Testament which upon their 
face, as they stand in our present form of the Bible, 
appear to be among the most ancient of the record. 

It is not the purpose of the present.series to discuss 
such questions, which depend for their settlement 
upon a range of scholarship far beyond me. But one 
thing the present argument must do, if it is to have 
any strength ; and that is, it must admit, for argu- 
ment’s sake, the latest date at which the most destruc- 
tive criticism of modern times may choose to place 
either the whole or portions of any existing book of 
the Old Testament. 

So far as our argument goes, it makes no difference 
whether all the Pentateuch was the work of Moses or, 
at any rate, of about that time ; or whether large por- 
tions of it were composed as late as 700 B.c., or even 
later : whether the book of Daniel was written actu- 
ally in the days of that prophet, or whether it was 
the production of a writer within two hundred years 
of the coming of Christ : whether the Prophet Isaiah, 
the son of Amoz, was the author of all the book which 
goes by his name, or whether a large portion of it at 
the close was produced by one or more nameless 
prophets of the captivity. 

Whatever may be the diversity of scholarly opinion 
on these points, or on the point of the relative claims 
to inspiration put forth for the records—there stand 


APPLIED TO EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 33 


the records, an indisputable literary fact ; and having, 
most of them, an undoubted existence some centuries 
before the Christian era, a large portion of them hav- 
ing an undoubted existence many centuries before that 
time; and that is all that is required, as already 
stated, for the present argument which is to be based 
upon admitted facts, and only on those. Of course it 
is assumed that these records in the main set forth 
what were the views and feelings, the beliefs and the 
practices—in short, the view of the national life— 
of the people whose national life they are the monu- 
ments of, in its various stages up to, say two hundred 
years before the beginning of the Christian era. If 
this much cannot be assumed, then, of course, not only 
‘must the argument be abandoned, but also all histori- 
cal research be useless in any quarter. The past, in 
short, in that case, must be blotted out. 

These literary monuments then, reveal to us at least 
what was the national belief as to the main facts of 
the national history embraced in their compass ; and 
some of these literary monuments which record the 
earlier basis of the history are admitted even by Ewald 
to have ‘‘every appearance of great antiquity.” 
(Hist. Israel, 1, 63.) He goes on to say, ‘‘ We find 
such fragments of the oldest historical works scattered 
about from the Book of Genesis down to that of 
Judges. . . . Thematter which they record may 
be recognized as the most strictly historical, and the 
picture which they present as the most antique.’’ As 
time wore on, other records were added, enlarging 
upon, or rearranging what had gone before ; adding 
new material of subsequent history ; and so presenting 


b+ PRINCIPLES OF AGNOSTICISM 


us with a continuous if in some instances a very much 
summarized picture of national life which in its main 
features of belief and action may be safely regarded 
as historical and not fictitious. ; 

These records present us with a national, springing 
out of a family and tribal, life, which in its main 
divisions may be classed as that of 

1. Hebrewism, 
2. Israelism, and 
3. Judaism ; 

The first ranging from the appearance of Abram 
the Hebrew to the migration of Jacob with his family 
into Egypt; the second from that time to the cap- 
tivity at Babylon ; and the third from the restoration 
of a portion of the people to Jerusalem up to the 
present time ; only the first part of this third period, 
of course, being found in any of the Old Testament 
records. 

From the beginning of the history in the migration 
of Abraham one feature of a marked characteristic 
appears in every line of the record, and may be read 
between the lines; that of exclusiveness, separation 
from all the rest of the world. 

In the first, or Hebrew period, this separation was 
brought about by the isolation of a certain family from 
the home and traditions of its ancestry in a land in 
which it was to play—as a matter of fact did play—the 
part of a wandering stranger without any landed pos- 
session but a purchased burfing-place. 

In the second, or Israel period, the separation 
(after a residence of centuries in Egypt) was brought 
about in the possession by the family, now expanded 


APPLIED TO EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 35 


into a nation, of the same country in which it had 
been a wandering stranger; a possession under a 
peculiar code of laws and social institutions which 
divided it from every other nation, and at the same 
time did so in a country which became “the battle- 
ground of the peoples and tribes of Asia ;’’ a seclu- 
sion, so to speak, in the central point of contact with 
the nations. 

In the third, or Jewish period of its history, the 
separation of the nation, scattered over the whole 
known world, was kept up by a system of religious 
institutions and race-ethics which maintained, and has 
maintained to this day an absolute demarcation from 
all other races and nations. 

We must now consider some of the particular points 
in which this separation was, during the whole life of 
the family and nation, believed by them to stand. 

The first and main point was the belief in the pecul- 
iar relations which subsisted between the race and its 
God. Every tribe and race had this same belief with 
reference to its tutelary deity, but in the case of Israel 
there were some peculiarities not seen elsewhere. 

Up to a certain time, that of the Exodus from 
Egypt, the current belief was that to their ancestors 
the Deity had been pleased to reveal Himself in a gen- 
eral way as God Almighty. 

At the time of the Exodus there was a marked 
change. 

It was believed, from that time on, that the Deity 
had chosen a new and personal name by which He was 
to be known to and worshipped by Israel, and that 


this new name was to be His ‘* Memorial to all gen- 


36 PRINCIPLES OF AGNOSTICISM 


erations.’’ The correct form of this name is now be- 
lieved by the best Hebrew scholars to be ‘‘ Jahveh ;” 
and the idea was that whatever might be the names 
under which other nations worshipped God or gods, 
‘¢ Jahveh ’’ was to be Israel’s God, and Israel was to 
be ‘‘ Jahveh’s ’’ especial and chosen people—‘‘ a peo- 
ple of inheritance ’’ as it is expressed : that Jahveh was 
a local God of the particular country in which Israel 


lived, and that when they were away from that coun- 


try they were away from the special presence and pro- 
tection of Jahveh their especial God. That this was 
the belief at a certain period of the history we can see 
by David’s complaint to Saul (1 Sam. 26:19), in 
which he says of his enemies, ‘‘ they have driven me 
out this day from abiding in the inheritance of 
Jahveh, saying, ‘ Go, serve other gods ;’” the exist- 
ence of which other local gods was apparently at the 
time believed in, but with the reservation that Jahveh | 
was a ‘‘ great king, above all gods.’? The idea was 
finally developed into the belief that Jahveh was the 
only God, God of the whole earth, and that there 
was no God beside Him. This was a development 
which it took a long time to evolve, a development 
which involved the true idea of monotheism. 

This is a matter of record in the sacred books of 
Israel, and it is very important to keep it in mind ; as 
otherwise we shall miss the truth of the record and 
lose its instruction. You may verify this for your- 
selves if you will remember when you read the Old 
Testament to substitute the personal name ‘‘ Jahveh”’ 
for the title ‘‘ The Lorp,’’ wherever the word 
‘*Lorp’’ in the English Bible is printed in capital 


APPLIED TO EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. of 


letters. Whenever it is so printed it is a paraphrase, 
not a translation of the Hebrew text, and to possess 
the truth of the record we need a translation, not a 
paraphrase. You will find the truth of what has been 
said vindicated by always reading the personal name 
' “ Jahveh”’ instead of the title ‘‘ The Lorp.” The 
whole warp and woof of the texture of the Old Testa- 
ment records from the time of the Exodus from 
Egypt, is based upon the idea of the personality of 
Jahveh as the God of Israel and of Israel being 
Jahveh’s people ; with the added and gradually devel- 
oped idea that Jahveh was and is the only God, and 
to be recognized as such finally by every nation. 

But what is the meaning of ‘‘ Jahveh”’ in this con- 
nection? And how was the idea of Jahvism devel- 
oped, first by the exclusive tendencies of Israelitish 
sacerdotalism, and secondly by the generalizing ten- 
dencies of Israelitish prophetism ? 

The name and the idea bound up in it were pro- 
pounded at a very critical period of the national his- 
tory ; and the form of expression now used in relat- 
ing it is adopted because the argument in its present 
stage is occupicd simply with recorded phenomena, 
not the actual or alleged causes of them. 

The nation of Israel was ina state of slavery. Sud- 
denly a man, with every natural qualification for the 
task presented himself to his fellow-slaves as their de- 
liverer from bondage, announcing that he had received 
a command from God to execute this task. Some- 
thing led them to submit themselves to his guidance 
andauthority. From that time on, by divine authority, 
as he alleged, they were to know their fathers’ God 


38 PRINCIPLES OF AGNOSTICISM 


by the personal name of ‘‘ Jahveh,’’? which means 
‘* He who will be.” The name was to be a constant 
and abiding *‘ memorial’’ that God would give them 
deliverance and would continue to be their national 
God. It was a memorial of deliverance and protec- 
tion; of peculiar deliverance and protection to them 
as distinguished from all other nations. So it was 
accepted ; and for a long time in the national history it 
was a matter of recorded belief that Jahveh was ex- 
clusively the God of Israel. 

This exclusiveness was kept up by a caste of 
priests, known distinctively as the “‘ priests of Jah- 
veh,” and whose business it was to see that the system 
of ceremonial and sacrifice enjoined by a law, gradu- 
ally expanded into great minuteness of detail, should 
be constantly and strictly observed. The main effect 
of this would be and was to maintain the exclusive- 
ness of Israel among the nations of the earth. It is 
true, the nation frequently fell away, and insisted on 
_ adopting the religions of neighboring tribes and na- 
tions ; but were, for some reason or other, always 
brought back to the worship of Jahveh. Of course 
the system of sacerdotalism in time produced another 
customary result of such a system, that of giving little 
heed to the moral law of Jahveh even while rigidly 
executing His ceremonial. 

But it is also of record that another force was at. 
work in the nation. LBesides the caste of ‘‘ priests of 
Jahveh’’ there was an order (not a caste) of men who 
claimed to be ‘prophets of Jahveh,’’ appearing 
singly from time to time, at first in national emergen- 
cies, and afterward as a settled order of men, with 


APPLIED TO ‘EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 39 


here and there an eminent individual, claiming some- 
times to foretell the future, sometimes to declare the 
will of Jahveh in the present, and whose office was 
twofold : (a) to call back to the service of Jahveh the 
nation when it had forsaken Him for other gods ; and ° 
(6) in later times when rite and ceremony and sacrifice 
were offered, even profusely, to Jahveh, coincidently 
with a low state of morals, to declare in burning words 
to the worshippers that clean hands and a pure heart 
and a righteous life were of more necessity than any 
amount of sacrifices. The following instance may 
stand for one of many. (Micah 6 : 6-8.) 

The question was how to please Jahveh : ‘‘ Where- 
with shall I come before Jahveh, and bow myself be- 
fore the high God? Shall I come before Him with 
burnt offerings, with calves of a year old? Will 
Jahveh be pleased with thousands of rams, or with 
ten thousands of rivers of oil? Shall I give my 
first-born for my transgression, the fruit of my body 
for the sin of my soul?’ 

The prophetic answer was, ‘‘ He hath showed thee, O 
man, what is good ; and what doth Jahveh require of 
thee but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk 
humbly with thy God ?”’ 

But this did not exhaust the teaching of the 
prophets. 

As time wore on, they proclaimed in unmistakable 
terms that the exclusiveness of Jahvism would be 
modified, that others than the chosen people would 
be admitted to a share in the blessings of that religion ; 
and this, too, was proclaimed at a time when the ex- | 
clusiveness was in full force. The following passage 


40 PRINCIPLES OF AGNOSTICISM 


will illustrate the character of the proclamation of a 
prophet in Jerusalem before the captivity in Babylon. 
(Isaiah 25: 6, 7, 8, 9.) ‘‘In this mountain shall 
Jahveh Zebaoth make unto all people a feast of fat 
things ; a feast of wines on the lees; of fat things - 
full of marrow, of wines on the lees well refined. 
And THe will destroy in this mountain the face of the 
covering cast over all people, and the veil that is 
spread over all nations. He will swallow up death 
in victory . . . and it shall be said in that day, Lo, 

. . this is Jahveh ; we have waited for Him, we 
will be glad and rejoice in His salvation.”’ 

To sum up, then, this portion of the subject : 

There were two views of Jahvism, sometimes antago- 
nistic, in the development of the national life of Israel. 

They were embodied in (a) The ‘‘ priests of Jahveh,”’ 
with their restricting conservatism and magnifying of 
rite, ceremony and sacrifice ; and (8) the ‘‘ prophets of 
Jahveh’’ who progressively proclaimed Him as the 
God of righteousness, and who predicted a ‘‘ new coy- 
enant ”’ fitted and destined for many peoples. 

The antagonism of the days of Jeremiah was 
modified and reconciled under the priestly ritual 
of the sacred temple, so. far as Israel itself was con- 
cerned. (See Kuenen, ‘‘ National Religions and Uni- 
versal Religions,’’ pp. 156, 157, 177.) 

The effect—or rather one marked effect—of the 
dispersion after the Babylonish captivity was in sev- 
ering the Jewish religion from the Jewish nationality, 
and thus preparing the way for the evolution of a 
universal out of a national religion. (See Kuenen, 
Pp LSS od Sieh ee 


APPLIED TO EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 41 


We have thus seen, in a very brief and summarized 
way, aseries of facts in a national life which by dint 
of its very exclusiveness, developed a comparatively 
crude tribal idea of God into a true monotheism set- 
ting forth as capable of universal (no longer tribal or 
national) recognition and worship one only God, who 
was preeminently a righteous God.* 

Was this result, as a matter of fact, attained any- 
where else in the world to the same extent, and asa 
basis of a future development ? 

If it was, I have failed to read about it. 

There may or may not have been a settled plan un- 
derlying it all. 

To me, the natural conclusion would be that there 
was. Still, it may be and is claimed that that isa 
matter about which opinions may differ. 

We have, however, as yet glanced but briefly at 
one national life in connection with religion ; and 
have seen that Jahvism was a religion which had a 
future as well as a present, which no other religion of 
antiquity had: and inseparably connected with that 
future was the Messianic idea, the origin and develop- 
ment of which must be reserved for future considera- 
tion. It is a matter of record. 


* See ‘* The Religion of Israel,” by Dr. A. Kuenen. 


TVs 


THE ORIGIN AND DEVELOPMENT OF TIE 
MESSIANIC IDEA. 


Micah Vi, 20.—‘‘ Thou wilt perform the truth to Jacob, and the 
mercy to Abraham, which thou hast sworn unto our fathers from 
the days of old.’’—xs. c. 700, not later. 


Preached Sept. 3, 1832, in St. Paul's Church, Chestnut Hill, Philadelphia. 


We have seen, by appealing to the records of the 
national life of Israel, the slow development within 
national limits of a true monotheism capable of uni- 
versal adoption. 

We pass now toa consideration of the slow develop- 
ment of the national idea concerning the agent, by 
whom blessings would come to Israel and through 
Israel to the world. 

As before, the character of the statements will be 
that of a brief summary only, setting forth a catena of 
facts established by the Hebrew Scriptures of the Old 
Testament, considered simply as literary monuments 
entitled to the same, credit as, and to no more credit 
than, other literary monuments of the past universally 
admitted to exist ; and freely conceding, for argu- 
ment’s sake, the validity of every modern doubt as to 
the relative antiquity or recentness of different parts 
of those Scriptures. 

The prophet Micah is admitted to have lived not 
later than seven hundred years before the Christian 


PRINCIVLES OF AGNOSTICISM. 43 


era, and the book which bears his name is admitted 
to be his. 

The last verse of his book shows that there was in 
his mind a belief concerning certain blessings prom- 
ised to the progenitors of the Hebrew people ; and 
the general way in which “‘ the truth to Jacob ”’ and 
‘the mercy to Abraham,” are referred to, make it 
reasonable to suppose there was also a popular belief 
on that subject which would understand just what he 
meant. 

Now we also have among those Hebrew records 
some which are of undoubtedly much greater antiquity 
than the production of Micah ; and they may be taken 
as trustworthy records of what was believed at the 
time they were composed. Whether what was be- 
lieved rested on adequate authority, or on the actual 
authority upon which it claimed to rest, is not now 
the point at issue. It is simply the question of the 
fact, not the real or alleged origin of it which con- 
cerns Us. 

It is safe then to say that a very long time before the — 
date of Micah there is the recorded belief that God 
made certain specific promises to Abraham, Isaac 
and Jacob ; promises specific and yet entirely gen- 
eral—even to the extent of vagueness—in their terms. 
To all three, the promises were conveyed in the form, 
‘‘Tn thee and in thy seed shall all the families (or na- 
tions) of the earth be blessed (or bless themselves). ”’ 
Hasna ces Leer: 20s 18s 506 .74>; 28 514.) he 
same records in which these alleged promises are 
preserved also tell us with the utmost frankness, in 
effect, that so far as these three recipients of the 


44 PRINCIPLES OF AGNOSTICISM 


promise were concerned, while they seemed to have a 
fair share of the blessings of wealth (gotten by fair 
means or foul) there was nothing at all in their expert- 
- ence which could be regarded as the accomplishment 
of such a prediction. 

The earliest records are frank in remanding the ful- 
filment to the future. 

We are fairly entitled to take this belief, that God 
-made such a promise, as the germ of what was after- 
ward developed into ‘‘ The Messianic idea.” 

The processes of that development are now to be 
briefly traced. 

It is on record that the lawgiver Moses, who was also 
believed to be (whether he was or not) a mediator be- 
tween Jahveh and Israel, made this statement (Dent. 
18:15): ‘ Jahveh thy God will raise up unto thee a 
prophet from the midst of thee, of thy brethren, like 
unto me: unto him shall ye hearken :’’ and the record 
furthermore goes on to say that this statement was 
endorsed by Jahveh, in the following terms (Deut. 
18:18, 19): ‘‘I will raise them up a prophet from 
among their brethren like unto thee, and will put my 
wordsin hismouth. . . . And it shall come to pass, 
that whosoever will not hearken unto my words which 
he shall speak in my name, I will require it of him.” 

Now, for purposes of this argument, it does not 
make any matter whether or not Moses actually made 
this prediction, with this endorsement. It is enough 
to know that an ancient record, part of which was 
made up after Moses had died, declares the fact, and 
that the truth of the declaration was believed as an 
ancient tradition among the people of Israel. Indeed, 


APPLIED TO EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 45 


the later the date assigned to the final revision of the 
book of Deuteronomy, the more remarkable, in view 
of the alleged prediction above quoted, are the closing 
words of the book (Deut. 34:10): ‘* And there arose 
not a prophet since in Israel like unto Moses, whom . 
Jahveh knew face to face.”? If these two portions of 
the record were made up after the time of Elijah, it 
is an admission that the prediction was fulfilled not 
even in him, great as he was. If made up before his 
time, it becomes all the more remarkable for the an- 
tiquity of the statement ; and in either case bears wit- 
ness to a popular belief and expectation embedded in 
the record. Asa matter of fact, the very latest Old 
Testament record is absolutely silent as to any claim 
asserted by any of the prophets to be the one whom 
the prediction (for in the time of some of them it was 
a prediction) indicated. 

The point of the whole matter is that there was a 
recorded belief and a continued expectancy in conse- 
quence of the belief. It continued to be part of the 
‘“religion of the future.”’ 

We pass now to another matter of unfulfilled ex- 
pectation, unfulfilled that is, within the compass of 
the Old Testament records. 

About eleven hundred years before the Christian 
era, a radical change took place in the form of the 
national government of Israel. The history (which 
was certainly made up of very ancient fragments, no 
matter when they were put into their present shape) 
seems to vary in its statements as to the goodness or 
badness of the motives which brought about the 
change : but of the fact of the change there can be no 


46 PRINCIPLES OF AGNOSTICISM 


doubt. From a condition of things in which “ every — 
man did that which was right in his own eyes ’’—.¢., 
a condition of anarchy, which was favorable only to 
the enemies of Israel—the tribes became consolidated 
into a kingdom under the headship of one who was 
supposed to rule as Jahveh’s vicegerent. 

The dynasty of the first king, Saul, practically end- 
ed in his own person. He was succeeded by one who 
is spoken of as ‘‘ the darling of the songs of Israel ”’ 
—David; whose romantic career, personal charms, 
indomitable valor, and firmly consolidated power, 
made him an ideal king in the eyes of his subjects. 
His person, and his time, were ever afterward looked 
upon as the golden age of the history and national lite 
of Israel. They were the ceaseless theme of story and 
song, the standard of comparison for all the future. 

But more than this. It came to be believed—the 
whole subsequent Hebrew literature is full of it—that 
Jahveh had promised to this favored king that his 
dynasty would be perpetuated in a remarkable way. 
‘‘ There can be no question that the most exalted as- 
pirations were raised in the minds of the people as to 
the permanence of their kingdom in the line of 
David.’? (Stanley Leathes, ‘‘ The Religion of the 
Christ,’’ p. 75.) 

‘©The sure mercies of David,’? became a sort of 
proverb. It seemed as if the vagueness of the prom- 
ise which was believed to have been made to Abraham 
was to give place to the definiteness of being carried 
out at any rate in the line of David: that a king of 
his lineage would arise who should have universal 
dominion. 


APPLIED TO EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 47 


And yet, in the reign of his grandson, the kingdom 
was divided, and ten twelfths of it not long after van- 
ished from the face of the earth. Kings of his line 
reigned over the remaining two twelfths for a time 
longer, until, five hundred years at the latest after 
David’s reign, the last king still being his descendant, 
the kingdom was broken up entirely and its subjects 
were carried away into captivity. Still, the hope kept 
up, on the strength of the promise, and the revival of 
the kingdom in some way under a ‘‘ son of David” 
was pertinaciously expected. 

That also, was a part of ‘“‘the religion of the 
future.’’ But there was more than all this. 

The 110th Psalm is headed ‘‘ A Psalm of David.’’ 
Let us, for reasons already stated, suppose that this 
title means only ‘‘ a psalm concerning David,’’ and is 
of uncertain date. It will show, at any rate, as a 
matter of fact what was believed concerning hiin and 
the promise made to him of a coming king of his line. 
The very mysteriousness of the words but accentuates 
the belief. ven if we are to believe, as some say, 
that this psalm describes in all the wealth of Oriental 
hyperbole the hopes concerning David himself as he 
was setting out on some grand military expedition, it 
would also describe far more accurately the hopes 
concerning his promised successor who was, as a son of 
David, to ese universal dominion and raise the king- 
dom 4 David to an unprecedented pitch of glory. 

The translation here given is no doubt accurate—as 
coming from those apparently eminent for Hebrew 
scholarship—and also as made by those who consider 
the psalm as applying to David personally. (‘¢ The 


48 PRINCIPLES OF AGNOSTICISM 


Psalms Chronologically Arranged: An Amended 
Version, with Historical Introductions and Explana- 
tory Notes, by Four Friends.”’ 2d edition. Mac- 
millan, London, 1870, pp. 31, 32.) 

‘‘Jahveh saith unto my lord: ‘Sit thou on my 
right hand until I make thine enemies thy footstool.’ 
Jahveh shall send thee the sceptre of power out of 
Sion; be thou ruler in the midst among thine enemies ; 
thy people are a free-will offering in the day of battle : 
in holy array, as dewdrops from the womb of the 
morning, thou hast the bands of thy warriors. Jahveh 
hath sworn and will not repent : ‘ thou art a priest for- 
ever after the order of Melchizedek,’ ’’ ete. 

This priesthood, then, after the order of Melchize- 
dek and not in the line of Aaron, was a portion of 
‘‘the sure mercies of David,’’ to be, even according 
to the view of the Psalm quoted above, elaborated in 
the person of his promised successor, according to the 
recorded belief. i 

This also was a part of ‘‘the religion of the 
future.”’ 

Let us sum up its points: the points of recorded 
belief in the nation, with no recorded fulfilment in the 
Old Testament. 

- The promise to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob severally, 
‘‘TIn thee and in thy seed shall all families (or na- 
tions) of the earth be blessed (or bless themselves). ’’ 

The promise of a coming prophet like unto Moses 
‘‘ whom Jahveh knew face to face.’’? The. promise of 
a coming king, a ‘Son of David,’? who with the 
kingly should exercise also the priestly functions, 
‘* After the order of Melchizedek.”’ 


APPLIED TO EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 49 


The Psalms represent the spontaneous expression of 
national sentiment and are witnesses to the history. 
As it has been well said (Stanley Leathes, p. 132), 
** The occurrence of the several allusions in the Psalms 
which presuppose events in the national history is of 
the highest possible value: for if these allusions are 
genuine, they afford independent confirmation of the 
history ; and if they are otherwise, then they can only 
have been produced after the history was in exist- 
ence ’’; and ‘‘ on the evidence of the Psalms there can 
be no question that David is the inheritor of whatever 
promises were made to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob ”’ 
(p. 104). 

As before, however, the realization of the promise 

was to be in the future. 

We have some other important considerations of 
what the psalms show forth as the current belief be- 
sides the national election and the blessings of that 
election centring in the line of David; viz., a total 
change of belief (in the authors of many of the psalms 
and in those who so far assented to them as to preserve 
them) as to evidences of the divine favor toward indi- 
viduals. In short we find a new ideal of righteous 
manhood. The original ideal—and one long main- 
tained—had been that worldly prosperity, health, 
large families, etc., betokened the man who possessed 
God’s favor and so proved himself a righteous man. 
Some of the psalmists seem to have retained one or 
more of these criteria. Others presented a far differ- 
ent view ; and the statement can best be made in the 
words of the author above quoted : 

‘“The Psalms open with the description of an 


50 PRINCIPLES OF AGNOSTICISM 


ideally righteous man ; a description which is repeat- 
ed in the 15th and 24th Psalms, becomes the expres- 
sion of a strong personal resolve in the 101st, and is 
expanded and enlarged upon in the 112th Psalm. 

In proportion as the people could grasp 
the promise of blessing for the nations in the seed of 
Abraham, they would learn from the teaching of these 
and similar psalms that any one who claimed to fulfil 
that promise must himself be righteous to the utmost 
limit of their standard, of which David himself had 
but too conspicuously fallen short ’’ (Stanley Leathes, 
p- 97). 

But there were other psalms which not only pro- 
pounded a standard of righteousness, but also detailed 
its experiences. They brought out in humanity and 
gave ‘‘expression to . . . the experience of integ- 
rity borne down by oppression, the being persecuted 
for righteousness’ sake, the notion of being made per- 
fect through suffering, as well as the picture of an 
ideal degree of suffering, and consequently of an ideal 
sufferer, which men must have learned to feel, the 
more they pondered it, could only wait for its com- 
plete fulfilment, if it was to be fulfilled. And inas- 
much as the expression of this from first to last was 
everywhere cast in’ the form of personal experience, it 
‘ became more and more impossible that the various 
characteristics should not group themselves round a 
person, and combine to form a whole, which as it 
grew by constant but gradual accretion, was found to 
be not altogether in the likeness of David, or of any 
other historic character to whom it might be referred ”’ 
at that time (S. Leathes, p. 100). 


APPLIED TO EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. suk 


All this is equally true of that marvellous delinea- 
tion of character and experience and results recorded 
‘in Isaiah 52 : 183—53 : 12, of one who is designated as 
_ the servant of Jahveh.”’ If it be claimed that the 
prophet of the captivity is describing afflicted Isracl 
in this way, there are at any rate certain expressions 
used which have at least an equal applicability to an 
ideal individual, and which would sink into the na- 
tional consciousness as such. 

And indeed the prophetic mind was looking toward 
an individual person, and was teaching the popular 
mind to look in the same direction. ‘‘ The Messiah,”’ 
or ‘‘ Anointed One,”’ was a title used to designate both 
Saul, David, and Solomon, all of whom had been by 
prophetic hands literally anointed with oil as the cere- 
monial of their induction by Jahveh into the high 
office of his viceregent. The ceremony seems to have 
fallen into general disuse upon the accession of suc- 
ceeding kings. The records both in the books of 
Kings and Chronicles, in relating the accession of a 
new king both in the northern and southern kingdoms 
do so (with two exceptions) in the stereotyped form, 
‘‘ Such a king died, and such a one, his son, reigned 
in his stead.”’ 

The two exceptions (both in book of Kings) where 
anointing with oil was used, were in the case of Jebu 
in Israel and Joash in Judah (2 Kings 9:6, and 
11:12), the first of whom had a special mission to 
perform for Jahveh, and the second of whom was 
made king under peculiar circumstances by special 
authority of Jehoiada the priest of Jahveh, at a time 
of sweeping reformation in the kingdom for the pur- 


52, PRINCIPLES OF AGNOSTICISM 


pose of restoring the worship of Jahveh which had 
been for a time overshadowed by the worship of Baal. 

After this, the title of ‘‘ The Anointed of Jahveh ” 
seems to have been used chiefly in a figurative sense, 
and denoted anyone who had a special work to do for 
Jahveh, being even applied in Isaiah 45 to Cyrus the 
Persian, who is described in a preceding verse as 
Jahveh’s ‘‘ Shepherd’? who was to ‘‘ perform his 
pleasure. ”’ 

It is not surprising then, that this title ‘‘ The 
Anointed ”’ (which is simply the translation of ‘‘ Mes- 
siah ’’) should connect itself in the prophetic mind and 
diction, and so in the mind and speech of the people 
taught by the prophets, with whoever it was who was 
described as ‘‘ the servant ’’ of Jahveh ; and also that 
it should be associated peculiarly with the promised 
One who, whether as Prophet, King, Priest after the 
order of Melchizedek, or Redeemer, was to be the 
divinely appointed (so by them believed) channel 
through whom the promised blessing would come to 
Israel and through Israel to the world. Some quota- 
tions froin the prophetic writings will best set before 
you the prophetic view and the popular feeling which 
accepted that view. 

After the prophetic delineation in Isaiah of the 
righteous but suffering ‘‘servant of Jahveh,”’ the 
writer says (58: 11, 12): ‘‘ He shall see of the travail 
of his soul and be satisfied: by his knowledge shall : 
my righteous servant justify many ; for he shall bear 
their iniquities. Therefore will I divide him a por- 
tion with the great, and he shall divide the spoil with 
the strong ; because he hath poured out his soul unto 


APPLIED TO EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 53 


death ; and he was numbered with the transgressors ; 
and he bare the sin of many, and made intercession 
for the transgressors.”’ These are remarkable words, 
to whomsoever they may be supposed to apply. 

It would seem to be in connection with this one’s 
mission and work that the same writer had previously 
(49 : 6) described the mission of Israel to the world : 
‘Tt is a light thing that thou shouldest be my servant 
to raise up the tribes of Jacob and to restore the pre- 
served of Israel: I will also give thee for a light to 
the Gentiles that thou mayest be my salvation unto the 
end of the earth.” 

Indeed it would take too long to cite all the pas- 
sages from the prophets where the now fully devel- 
oped Messianic idea is expressed. There ig one pas- 
sage, however, which must be quoted as showing an 
exactness of anticipation as to the precise place whence 
the Messiah should come. The prophet Micah wrote 
(5:2): ‘ Butthou, Bethlehem Ephratah, though thou 
be little among the thousands of Judah, yet out of 
thee shall he come forth unto me that is to be Ruler 
in Israel: whuse goings forth have been from of old, 
from everlasting.’? Bethlehem, be it remembered, 
was David’s birthplace ; and this is Micah’s commen- 
tary upon what was meant in connection with ‘‘ the 
sure mercies of David.”’ : 

One passage more must not be passed over. The 
. date and authorship of the book of Daniel are disputed. 
Some would place it within two hundred years of the 
Christian era. Be itso, then. But in that case it is 
only a more emphatic exposition of the state of devel- 
opment of the Messianic idea, as the result of all the 


bf > PRINCIPLES OF AGNOSTICISM 


previous teaching and belief. In Daniel 9 : 24, 25, 
and 26, it is written: ‘‘ Seventy weeks are determined 
upon ety people and upon thy holy city, to finish the 
transgression, and to make an end of sins, and to make 

we lopaciatinn for iniquity, and to bring in everlasting 
Seer and to seal up the vision and prophecy 
and to anoint the Most Holy. Know, therefore, and 
understand, that from the going forth of the com- 
mandment to restore and to build Jerusalem unto the 
Messiah the Prince shall be seven weeks and three- 
score and two weeks. . . . And after threescore and 
two weeks shall Messiah be cut off, but not for him- 
self.”? If the book of Daniel is of an earlier date, the 
prediction is only the more remarkable. If it be of 
the later date, it clearly shows in what condition the 
last of the sacred writings of the Old Testament left 
the Messianic thought ll hope to work in the minds 
of the people.. 

Here we must leave this part of the subject. Your 
own reading may furnish you with many more pas- 
sages than those quoted which show what was as a 
matter of fact thought and felt—whether or not there 
was any adequate authority for it—concerning the 
Messiah, as evidenced by the record in the Old Testa- 
ment. 

I trust enough has been adduced to show in a very 
compressed way from that record—or, rather, those 
records—the origin, development, and state of prog- 
- ress, of the Messianic idea up to, say, within two 
centuries preceding the Christian era, among the peo- 
ple of Israel. 


It may be safely asserted that, as a mere phenome- - 


nn 


APPLIED TO EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. BYS) 


non, this expectation and hope is unique among the 
religions of antiquity. This fact it is important to 
bear in mind. 

The nearest approach to it, perhaps, is connected 
with the eschatology of the System of Zarathustra. 
But even that, if it be scanned closely will be seen to _ 
be an entirely different thing. (See C. Pes rile: 
‘History of Religion,” pp. 176, 177.) 


Ve 


GREEK AND ROMAN DEVELOPMENT IN 
THE LINE OF CAPACITY FOR RECEIV- 
ING A TRUE MONOTHEISM, SAID CaA- 
PACITY BEING EVOLVED OUT OF AN 
HISTORICAL AND FUNDAMENTAL INCA- 
PAOITY. 


oY 


2 Peter III, 8, 9.—‘*‘One day is with the Lord as a thousand 
years, and a thousand years as one day. 

‘‘The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some count 
slackness ; but is long-suffering to us-ward, not willing that any 
should perish, but that all should come to repentance.”’ 


Preached Sept. 10, 1882, in St. Paul’s Church, Chestnut Hill, Philadelphia. 


We have considered the national life and religious 
development of a portion of the Semite family of the 
human race. 

We are now to consider the religious development 
of portions of the Indo-Germanie family which have 
exercised important influences upon the world’s 
history. 

In the case of Israel we saw that the religious and 
national cultus was exclusive, and by means of that 
exclusiveness developed a true monotheism capable of 
universal adoption : but with the idea in the national 
mind that such adoption would be universal adhesion 
to Judaism in a thorough or in a modified form ; still, 
therefore, retaining its exclusiveness to the last, in 
spite of the race which held it being deprived of any 


PRINCIPLES OF AGNOSTICISM. 57 


national home of its own, and scattered over the whole 
world. 

In case of the Greeks and Romans, and affiliated 
races, we shall also find a thorough exclusiveness orig- 
inally and for a very long time maintained, but by 
slow degrees changed into a state of preparation to 
accept the monotheistic idea which had been devel- 
oped in Israel, but without the necessity of adherence 
to Judaism : in short, the truest because the most uni- 
versally practicable, monotheism, irrespective of race 
or kindred, or of national traditions. 

The development here, as in the case of Israel, was 
very slow, but none the less sure ; and was brought 
to a practical completeness, singularly enough, just 
about at the time when the monotheism which it 
could accept was ready for its acceptance, and under 
circumstances (to be considered hereafter) which con- 
spired as they did at no other time to make the adapt- 
ability of the one for the other productive of the most 
effective and widespread results. 

The subject is a large one and must be divided. 
To-day I propose to sketch the religious causes which 
produced certain results in all that ancient family of 
the human race of which the Greek and Roman may 
be taken as a type, up to the time when the results, in 
organized ancient society, were in full force : results 
which made agreement in the worship of one God a 
thing absolutely impossible for them until the results 
should be modified. 

On a future occasion I hope to state how when these 
ancient exclusive faiths had weakened, while the forms 
they had begotten still remained for a long time, 


58 PRINCIPLES OF AGNOSTICISM 


one revolution after another in civil and religious so. 
ciety progressively and actually, if very slowly, swept 
away both faiths and forms, and produced a condition 
of society capable of receiving a universal faith. 

The Aryan race, at anyrate in its most remarkable 
and powerful representatives, anciently had two dis- 
tinct religions, each having its formative power in 
primitive society ; and each of which after exercising 
that formative power, gradually came to a condition 
where, while the old forms remained, the faith which 
produced them had gone out of them, and a void was 
caused, and a change in the condition of society 
brought about ; before which time no universal relig- 
ion was possible. The two sets of deities who pre- 
sided over these two distinct religions, were, 

1. Personifications of nature and of natural forces ; 
and | 

2. The spirits of deceased ancestors. 

We are to consider, at the start, the second of these, 
and the results which followed the belief. 

The ancient belief as to the dead was based upon 
the faith that when a man died his spirit still contin- 
ued to live, and to live in some way connected with 
his mortal remains in their tomb. This belief, it will 
be noticed, was anterior to the idea of a general under- 
world where the souls or shades of the departed were 
gathered after the due performance of the funeral 
rites. It also, in a confused and iJlogical way, contin- 
ued to exist side by side, afterward, with the belief 
in Hades or the under-world. 

From this belief arose the idea and the very firm 
belief that worship should be paid to deceased ances- 


APPLIED TO EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. ao 


tors. The worship of the dead and the idea on which 
it rested was prevalent among the Hellenes, Latins, 
Sabines, Etruscans, and Aryas of India. Mention is 
made of it in the hymns of the Rig-Veda, and the 
laws of Manu speak of it as the most ancient worship 
among men. 

It was a worship which was absolutely exclusive in 
its character ; for each family was a worshipper of its 
own ancestors, and it was the highest degree of im- 
piety for the member of one family even to witness, 
much less take part in, the worship of any other 
family. 

In short, each family had its own tutelary god, or 
gods, and it was impious for anyone outside of that 
family to worship him or them. 

The right to conduct the family worship, as well as 
to engage in it, was transmitted through the male 
members of the family. The head of the family con- 
ducted the family worship, offered the family sacri- 
fices, and was, in short, the priest of the family. 
When a woman married she left the gods and the 
worship of her father’s family and was adopted into 
the worshippers of the gods of her husband’s family, 
being thenceforth an absolute stranger to the worship 
into which she had been born. 

The family under these circumstances was not a 
body connected by ties of blood so much as by ties of 
worship, and to such an extent was this the case, so 
absolutely did it exclude all other ties and recognition 
of them, that, as religion was recognized only in the 
line of the male succession, so was blood-relationship 
and the right of inheritance restricted to the same 


60 PRINCIPLES OF AGNOSTICISM 


line. In other words, a man counted as his blood- 
relations—his ‘‘ agnati,’’ as the Romans called them— 
only those to whom he was related on his father’s side 
and not on his mother’s; so that, eg., while his 
father’s brother’s son was his blood-relation, his 
mother’s brother’s son was no relation at all; for the 
reason that his mother’s brother had different family 
gods, which his mother had solemnly renounced when 
she married his father. 

The family then, as these people understood and 
constituted it, was a peculiarly sacred thing, a church 
rigidly set off from every other church, not only hav- 
ing nothing in common with the worship of any other 
family church, but considering it a profanation. Its 
own gods, its own sacrifices, its own sacred fire kept 
perpetually burning upon the home altar, were the all 
in all of religion to it. Every other worshipper of 
every other god was a stranger, nay more, an enemy ; 
and as one slight trace among a multitude of traces of 
this fact which became embedded in language, the 
Latin ‘* hostis’’ is, indifferently, ‘‘a stranger,’’ or 
‘fan enemy.”’ 

The precise formula of the family prayer and sacri- 
fice was handed down from father to son, and jealously 
kept from the knowledge of every other family ; and 
the precision of the accurate pronunciation of the spe- 
cial formula was indispensable to acceptable worship. 
So much so was this the case, that long after a knowl- 
edge of what the words meant had passed away from 
the worshipper, he still religiously used them and none 
others to replace them. 

It is, of course, easy to see that in this condition of 


APPLIED TO EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 61 


religious thought and practice, the adoption of any- 
thing like a universal religion would be impossible ; 
and that in any social and civil polity which would 
grow out of and rest upon this thought and practice it 
would be equally impossible to not only adopt, but 
even to conceive of the possibility of, such a thing as 
a universal religion. 

But the whole framework of Greek and Roman 
civil society, in its length and breadth, the whole 
body of civil law up to a certain time (varying per- 
haps in different communities), grew out of and rested 
upon the religious thought and practice of the family 
worship as I have above very briefly sketched it. 

At an early time, indeed, in what are to us the 
authentic histories of ancient Greece and Rome, 
although of course at a late time of Aryan race-his- 
tory, the ancient belief began to die out—in some cases 
appeared to have entirely vanished ; but the rites, the 
customs, the laws, still remained, bearing witness to 
the antiquity of the belief. 

Let us trace briefly the course things took. While 
the same facts were evolved in Greek as well as Ro- 
man development ; for brevity’s sake the Roman will 
be taken as the type. 

It would come to pass in time that two or more 
families—family being used in the extended sense as 
comprising older and younger branches—would find 
themselves in proximity and desire a more extended 
union than strictly construed family ties would give. 
Inasmuch as the basis of family ties was a common 
worship from which all not members of the family 
were excluded, it would follow that a worship in 


62 PRINCIPLES OF AGNOSTICISM 


which two or more families could unite must be 
directed toward some real or legendary personage, who 
was assumed to be an ancestor of a greater antiquity 
than each special tutelary family god, and common to 
both or to all the families uniting in his worship. By - 
such a union of families was formed the gens, which, 
over and above the secret rites of each family compos- 
ing it, and in which no other family had a share, pos- 
sessed and practised the worship of the tutelary god of 
the gens, the living man recognized as the head of 
the gens being the priest. 

By precisely similar steps, various gentes were 
united into a curia, and various curize into a tribe, and 
several tribes into a city, a ‘‘ civitas’? which exercised 
its own peculiar worship in the ‘‘ Urbs.” 

The civitas was the sacred body politic. The Urbs 
was the walled place within which it existed, and out- 
side of which its sacred rites could not be performed. 

Here, then, we have arrived at the full development 
of what became the unit of political existence, the 
‘* Ancient City.’’ Here the process of amalgamation 
—always a religious process—ceased. 

Ideas of fatherland which afterward grew up were 
unknown to the ancients. It was impossible for them 
to conceive such an idea of one’s country as an Eng- 
lishman has of England, a Frenchman of F rance, or: 
an American of the United States, or even, if the; 
doctrine of states’ rights were restricted to its at the 
same time widest and smallest compass, of a Rhode 
Islander to Rhode Island or a Delawarean to Dela- 
ware. ‘The ancient city was a man’s “ country,’ and 
his ‘‘ country ’’ was his city. Every other Greek city 


APPLIED TO EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 63 


than Athens to an Athenian was a foreign country ; 
Urbs Roma was the Roman’s fatherland ; and for the 
reason that every city as such had its own gods, to 
worship whom was for the citizen of any other city the 
blackest impiety. There is nothing so deep and im- 
placable as the ‘‘odium theologicum,”’ and it was 
just that which kept every ancient city apart from 
each and all the rest, even of the same race. 

This polity was essentially aristocratic, involving 
originally and for a very long time the priesthood of 
the head of the family, and, progressively, the head 
of the gens, the curia, the tribe, the city. 

So much for the religion that founded the family 
and established the first laws for the Aryan race, of 
which the Greek and Roman divisions. have been 
singled out as types. | 

In passing to a notice of the other, alluded to at the 
beginning of this discourse, I shall not hesitate to 
quote, for the sake of as much brevity as possible, 
some well-considered sentences of a writer from whom 
I have gained most of the information condensed 
above. (Fustel de Coulanges, in ‘‘ The Ancient 
City,’? pp. 159, seq.) | 

‘‘ This race has also had in all its branches another 
religion, the one whose’ principal figures were Zeus, 
Here, Athene, Juno; that of the Hellenic Olympus, 
and of the Roman capitol. 

“ Of these two religions, the first found its gods in 
the human soul; the second took them from physical 
nature. As the sentiment of living power, and of 
conscience, which he felt in himself, inspired man 
with the first idea of the divine, so the view of 


6+ PRINCIPLES OF AGNOSTICISM 


this immensity, which surrounded and overwhelined 
him, traced out for his religious sentiment another 
course.” 

‘* These two orders of belief laid the foundation of 
two religions that lasted as long as Greek and Roman 
society. ‘They did not make war upon each other ; 
they even lived on very good terms, and shared the 
empire over man ; but they never became confounded. 
Their dogmas were always entirely distinct, often 
contradictory ; and their ceremonies and_ practices 
were absolutely different. The worship of the gods 
of Olympus, and that of ‘heroes’ and ‘ manes’ 
never had anything in common between them. 
Which of these two religions was the earlier in date 
no one can tell. It is certain, however, that one— 
that of the dead—having been fixed at a very early 
epoch, always remained unchangeable in its practices, 
while its dogmas faded away little by little ; the other 
—that of physical nature—was more progressive, and 
developed freely from age to age, modifying its 
legends and doctrines by degrees, and continually 
augmenting its authority over men.’? ‘‘ No rigor- 
ous laws opposed the propagation of the worship 
of any of these gods’’ within the limits of a city 
—in the case of some of them within the limits of 
a race such as the Hellenes. ‘* There was nothing 
in their nature that required them to be adored by one 
family only, and to repel the stranger’ if that stranger 
stood within certain limits. ‘‘ Finally, men must 
have come insensibly to perceive that the Jupiter of 
one family was really the same being or the same con- 
ception as the Jupiter of another ; which they could 


APPLIED TO EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 65 


never believe of two Lares, two ancestors, or two 
sacred fires.”’ 

‘“As this second religion continued to develop, 
society must have enlarged. Now, it is quite evident 
that this religion, feeble at first, afterward. assumed 
large proportions. In the beginning it was, so to speak, 
sheltered under the protection of its . . . sister, near 
the domestic hearth. There the god had obtained a 
small place, a narrow cella, near and opposite to the 
venerated altar, in order that a little of the respect 
which men had for the sacred fire might be shared by 
him. Little by little the god, gaining more authority 
over the soul, renounced this sort of guardianship, and 
left the domestic hearth. He had a dwelling of his 
own, and his own sacrifices, This dwelling (naos, 
from naio, to inhabit) was, moreover, built after the 
fashion of the ancient sanctuary : it was, as before, a 
cella opposite a hearth ; but the cella was enlarged 
and embellished, and became a temple. The holy fire 
reinained at the entrance of the god’s house, but ap- 
peared very sinall by the side of this house. What 
had at first been the principal, had now become only 
an accessory. It ceased to be a god, and descended to 
the rank of the god’s altar, an instrument for the sacri- 
fice. Its office was to burn the flesh of the victim, 
and to carry the offering with men’s prayers to the 
majestic divinity whose statue resided in the temple. 

‘‘ When we see these temples rise and open their 
doors to the multitude of worshippers, we may be 
assured that human associations have become en- 
larged.”’ 

And so they had ; but in most cases only within the 


G6 PRINCIPLES OF AGNOSTICISM 


limits of the city in which the temple stood. And 
even when the same name belonged to the deity presid- 
ing over each of different cities, it was not believed to 
be the same god. ‘‘ A great number of cities had a 
Jupiter as a city-protecting divinity. There were as: 
many Jupiters as there were cities. In the legend of 
the Trojan war we see a, Pallas who fights for the — 
Greeks, and there is among the Trojans another 
Pallas, who receives their worship and protects her 
worshippers. . . . There was at Rome a Juno: 
at a distance of five leagues, the city of Veii had an- 
other. So little were they the same divinity that we 
see the Dictator Camillus while besieging Veii, ad- 
dress himself to the Juno of the enemy, to induce her 
to abandon the Etruscan city and pass into his camp. 
When he is master of the city, he takes the statue, 
well persuaded that he gains possession of the goddess 
at the same time. From that time Rome had two 
protective Junos. . . . But the Romans who 
adored two Junos at home, could not enter the temple 
of a third Juno, who was in the little city of Lanu- 
vium ”’ (Ancient City, pp. 198, 199). 

‘* Neither the Greeks, nor the Latins, nor even the 
Romans, for a very long time, ever had a thought that 
several cities might be united and live on an equal 
footing under the same government. There might, 
indeed, be an alliance, or a temporary association, in 
view of some advantages to be gained, or some danger 
to be repelled ; but there was never a complete union ; 
for religion made of every city a body which could 
never be joined to another. Isolation was the law of 
the city.”’ (‘* Ancient City,” p. 270.) 


APPLIED TO EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. OF 


To sum up this part of the subject : 

The Ancient City was a confederation of existing 
groups ; the family, the gens, the curia, the tribe. 

It became the unit of political and social life. 

"It was religiously as distinct from every other city 
as family was from family, gens from gens, curia from 
curia, tribe from tribe. 

An alliance between two cities could only be tem- 
porary, was never thorough even while it lasted, and 
involved an alliance between their respective tutelary 
gods between whom there seemed naturally to be 
enmity. 

We can have very little difficulty in answering this 
question: ‘* While civil and social polity remained 
established.on this basis, was the adoption of a univer- 
sal religion, a true monotheism, possible ?”’ * 

The progress of events in these communities which 
alone made it possible is for future consideration. 


* With reference to the constitution of ancient society, see, 
also, Chapters V., VI., and VII. of ‘‘Ancient Law,’’ by Henry 
Sumner Maine. 


Wels 


GREEK AND ROMAN DEVELOPMENT IN 
THE LINE OF CAPACITY FOR RECEIYV- 
ING A TRUE MONOTHEISM, SAID CA- 
PACITY BEING EVOLVED OUT OF AN 
HISTORICAL AND FUNDAMENTAL IN. 
CAPACITY. 


LE 


2 Peter III, 8, 9.—‘*One day is with the Lord as a thousand 
years, and a thousand years as one day. 

“The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some count 
slackness ; but is long-suffering to us-ward, not willing that any 
should perish, but that all should come to repentance.”’ 


Preached Sept. 17, 1882, in St. Paul's Church, Chestnut Hill, Philadelphia. 


We have seen how in ancient society of peoples of 
the Aryan race and under the formative power of 
religious beliefs of great antiquity, a condition of 
things existed, bound up in the very constitution of 
the body politic, in which a universal religion was not 
only impossible, but even for a long time inconceiy- 
able. 

We are now to eles a series of causes which tended 
to break down this separatism : which not only tended 
to this end, but actually accomplished it ; and so made 
possible the adoption of a universal religion without 
regard to human citizenships. These changes cannot 
ul be connected with accurate dates. They pro- 
gressed in some quarters more rapidly than in others : 


PRINCIPLES OF AGNOSTICISM. 69 


they varied in their external manifestations in various 
places : but the forces at work were the same in those 
progressive changes throughout the civil and religious 
—civil because reJigious—societies and polities of 
which mention has been made. 

It has been already stated that the constitution of 
those polities was essentially aristocratic while they 
were in fuil force. Aristocracy was their genius. 
Whatever tended to dethrone this genius tended to 
bring abont the final result which made a universal 
religion possible. 

The first conflict to be noted was between the king 
and the aristocracy. In some communities, as the 
Greek, the name of king was retained after the con- 
flict ; but only the priestly functions which had in- 
hered in his office remained to him: in others, as at 
Rome, the very name of ‘‘ king’ was held in detesta- 
tion ; and the aristocracy seemed for the time to have 
triumphed, although elements of weakness adhered to 
its constitution as the ruling power in the city. For 
it must be noted that this revolution, everywhere, was 
not the work of the lower classes ; was not undertaken 
in their interest, but the contrary ; was ‘‘ not under- 
taken to overturn the ancient constitution of the fam- 
ily, but rather to preserve it.’”’ (‘‘ Ancient City,” 
p- 336.) 

But it came to pass that in spite of this temporary 
triumph, the aristocracy saw changes in its own con- 
stitution which altered the ancient order of things and 
became elements of weakness to it. The first of these 
was the political dismemberment of the gens. The 
right of primogeniture disappeared in time, at differ- 


70 PRINCIPLES OF AGNOSTICISM 


ent periods in different places—a silent and gradual 
revolution. 

The next change was that the clients (to use the 
Roman name of a class which also existed in Greek 
society) became free ; also a silent and very gradual 
revolution, of that sort which ‘‘ remained concealed 
even from the generations which took part in them. 
History can seize them only a long time after they 
have taken place, when, in comparing two epochs in 
the life of a people, it sees differences in them which 
show that a great revolution has been accomplished ”’ 
(p. 342). , 

If in Rome the name remained, the character of 
primitive clientship had passed away in later days. 
From the first years of the republic the clients were 
citizens (p. 856), and in B.c. 872 began to be con- 
founded with the plebs. In Cicero’s time a suit at 
law (Claudii vs. Marcelli) settled the fact that client- 
ship no longer existed. 

The next great revolution in ancient society was 
when the plebs entered the city, z.e., became part of 
the body politic. We must be careful to remember 
what was the exact status of that numerous body 
known as ‘‘ plebeians’’ or the ‘‘plebs ’’—to use the 
Roman name for what existed in Greek as well as Ro- 
man society. The essential character of the plebeians 
was that they had no worship recognized in the 
Ancient City, and therefore could have no civil rights, 
because all civil rights were connected with a recog- 
nized worship. It goes without saying that they 
could hold no magistracy, because every magistrate 
was a. performer of religious rites on behalf of those 


APPLIED TO EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 71 


over whom he exercised his magistracy. A revolu- 
tion therefore which gave the plebeians a share in the 
citizenship and in the government of the Ancient City 
was one which absolutely overturned the very basis on 
which the ancient polity had rested, and paved the 
way for important consequences. The character of 
the conflict between the patricians and the plebeians 
has been well summed up thus : 

‘* One of these classes wished to maintain the relig- 
ious constitution of the city, and to continue the gov- 
ernment and the priesthood in the hands of the sacred 
families. The other wished to break down the bar- 
riers that placed it beyond the pale of the law, of 
religion, of politics ’’ (p. 360). 

And so it came to pass in time that the plebs strove 
to have a worship of their own ; to have tribunes (who, 
it must be remembered, were not ‘‘ magistrates ’’ in 
the ancient sense of that term, an@ whose power of 
interposing for the protection of a plebeian by the 
magic word ‘‘ veto,’’ ‘‘I forbid,’’ extended no far- 
ther than their voices could make it heard); to have 
laws common for patricians and plebeians ; in short, to 
abolish the religious character of existing laws. 

The plebs also strove to make intermarriages with 
the patricians. , 

Now we must dismiss at once from our minds any 
inodern society notions on this subject. While the 
ancient order of things existed, these intermarriages 
were unheard of, not because of any notions of re- 
spectability or of moving in different sets of society 
according to modern ideas. The barrier which pre- 
vented it was a religious barrier: because marriage 


72 PRINCIPLES OF AGNOSTICISM 


with them in the strict sense of the term was a rite of 
the most sacred character, solemnized most exactly. 
How could there be intermarriages between those who 
had gods and a worship, and those who had none 2 It 
wasimpious. And when the plebeians finally succeed- 
ed in gaining this concession from the patricians, it 
was a revolution of the most radically religious char- 
acter ; and was an immense stride in breaking down 
the old religious separatism, and in bringing men 
under a common bond of brotherhood in the city ; 
and it could never have been brought about if the 
tenacity about forms and customs had not outlived the 
old faith which begot them. All these efforts were 
successful. ‘ 

Finally, there was on the part of the plebs an effort, 
and inthe end a successful one, to have the consul- 
ship and other magistracies, all of which involved the 
offering up of prayers and sacrifices on behalf of the 
city. What a mighty change from the time when for 
a plebeian even to be present at the sacrifices would 
have been a profanation of them. 

The point of the change is this: ‘‘ The plebs freed 
religion and the priesthood from the old hereditary 
character, and maintained that every man was quali- 
fied to pronounce prayers, and that, provided one was 
a citizen, he had the right to perform the ceremonies 
of the city worship. He thus arrived at the conclusion 
that a plebeian might be a priest.”? Finally, “ Faith 
in the hereditary principle of religion had been de- 
stroyed among the patricians themselves > (p. 408). 

The course of things up to this point—and we can 
sec what a mighty stride had been made toward the 


APPLIED TO EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 73 


possibility of a universal religion—has been sketched 
from Roman politics and under Roman names. But 
similar advances were made in Greek politics as well ; 
each subdivision of the Aryan race working according 
to its own peculiar genius and its own peculiar cireum- 
stances and forms. 

One result of it all was to pave the way for the pos- 
sibility of the action of individual conscience, a thing 
inknown and impossible under the old municipal gov- 
ernments, where ‘‘ individual liberty had been un- 
known, and man had not been able to withdraw even 
his conscience from the omnipotence of the city ”’ 
(p. 470). 

He was not able to do so yet ; but the way was be- 
ing paved. And, be it noted, it was being paved by 
the operation of “two principal causes. One be- 
longed to the order of moral and intellectual facts, the 
other to the order of material facts: the first is the 
transformation of beliefs, the second is the Roman 
Conquest. These two great facts belong to the same 
period ; they were developed and accomplished to- 
gether during the series ef six centuries which pre- 
ceded our era”? (p. 471). 

The way in which the transformation of beliefs 
changed the structure -of political society has been 
briefly sketched. Connected with this transformation 
—gradual, as we have noted—the Roman Conquest 
acted in many ways to produce the final result of 
preparation for the possibility of the adeption of a 
universal religion, supposing one was to offer itself or 
be offered for universal adoption. Some of these 
ways will be shown farther on. What is germane to 


74 PRINCIPLES OF -AGNOSTICISM 


the present part of the subject is the fact that, even 
when aristocratically constituted, the composite char- 
acter of the Populus Romanus brought it into peculiar 
relationships with many nationalities ; and under its 
headship there was a possible bond of union among 
the most diverse nations which was absolutely impossi- 
ble under the headship of any other city. From the 
beginning, Rome was more or less related, through 
one or another portion of its population, with all the 
peoples which it knew. ‘‘One of the remarkable 
peculiarities of the policy of Rome was, that she at- 
tracted to her all the worships of the neighboring 
cities. . . . For it was the custom of the Ro- 
mans, says one of the ancients, to take home the relig- 
ions of the conquered cities : sometimes they distrib- 
uted them among the gentes, and sometimes they gave 
them a place in their national religion. . 
While other cities were isolated by their religion, 
Rome had the address or the good fortune to employ 
hers to draw everything to herself, and to dominate 
over all”’ (pp. 489, 490). Here, then, was a progres- 
sive, a slowly progressive, tendency to a final unity 
of some sort or other. 

There was, in this same period, another tendency 
toward a possibility of unity, and that was due to the 
influence of Greek philosophy, which had been 
viodified somewhat by contact with Jewish teach- 
ings as to monotheism, but which, also, was the 
intellectual possession of the few higher minds. Still, 
it was not without a marked influence upon the drift 
of general thought as directed by the leaders of 
thought. This influence found its way to Rome ; and 


APPLIED TO EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 16 


as Rome’s conquests spread, this influence spread with 
them ; and both worked together, as an actual fact, to 
produce.a certain result. 

‘“‘Insensibly men departed from’’ the ‘“ rigorous 
rules’’ of the old way of religious thought and feeling, 
and from the narrow forms of government which had 
grown out of them. ‘* They were attracted toward 
unity. This was the general aspiration for two centu- 
ries preceding our era’’ (p. 481). 

The time came when men of the Greek and Roman 
world, with this aspiration, ceased to have belief, that 
is, the religious belief of their old systems. A great 
void had come to pass, ready to be filled if there was 
anything ready to fill it. 

Now all this progressive development of the centu- 
ries, religious, social, and political, is a very wonder- 
ful history if we consider it by itself as disconnected 
with other developments. Looked at even alone it 
might give rise to the not unwarrantable suspicion of 
having been the development of a settled plan. 
Looked at in connection with those other develop- 
ments, some of which have been noted, others of 
which are for future consideration—and thus looked at 
with reference to the time at which all these develop- 
ments converged to one point—it may be stated with- 
out risk of reasonable contradiction that if marks of 
design are under any circumstances evidences of de- 
sign, under these circumstances such evidences amount 
to a moral certainty. 

And, to return to the matter of citizenship: an ac- 
credited teacher of a new faith (which as a matter of 
fact did present itself for universal acceptance at the 


76 PRINCIPLES OF AGNOSTICISM 


very time when various developments had been per- 
fected and had converged to one fixed point), is under- 
stood by readers of the authorized English form in 
which his language appears, to have written ‘‘ our 
conversation is in heaven.’? The words which he 
actually did use mean, literally and exactly, ‘‘ our 
citizenship is in heaven’? (Phil. 3:20). These words 
were addressed to men not of the house of Israel, who 
were habituated to the thought of that theocracy ; but 
to men of the race whose views of a countless number 
of divinities we have been considering ; men who held 
all the separatist views of the worship and of citizen- 
ship in the Ancient City. ‘These words propounded a 
view of citizenship which, as a matter of fact, was 
soon widely accepted and steadily grew. They reveal 
at least one fact, that the old faith had died out while 
most of the old forms remained ; that a void had been 
created which was ready to be filled by any faith wor- 
thy to fill it ; and that men were now ready to listen 
to an appeal which in earlier times would have had no 
meaning to them; to wit, that all walls of spiritual 
separation between city and city, between race and 
race, had been broken down : that, in a spiritual sense 
at least, ‘‘ God had made of one blood all nations of 
the earth ;”? that instead of lords many and gods 
many, there was ‘‘ one God and Father of all ; above 
all, and through all and in all,’’ and that spiritually— 
for worship and all that belonged to it—it was no’ 
longer only in the same family, or gens, or curia, or 
tribe, or city, that a spiritual brother, a fellow wor- 
shipper, was to be looked for: but that in view of a 
common sonship to one God, all men were brethren. 


APPLIED TO EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. fer 


To each one’s city his civie allegiance was due: but 
no longer were the walls of his city to circumscribe 
his worship. 

Who can say that the bringing about the changes 
which made the’ readiness of men, in view of what 
their beliefs had been, to accept this view of the rela- 
tions of man to a higher power was the work of blind 
chance or mere natural development? Natural, in 
one sense, it certainly was, on good authority. ‘‘ In 
times past God suffered all nations to walk in their 
own ways.”’ 

But those ‘‘ own ways” so wonderfully tended, in 
so many modes, to bring about a definite result ata 
given and critical time, that, like the hands of a watch 
moving by the inner force of its works, their orderly 
motion reveals the intending mind of the contriver 
and maker ; and the majestic slowness of these spirit- 
ual processes would seem to indicate no meaner provi- 
dence than that of some ‘‘ King of the ages,’’ with 
whom ‘‘ one day is as a thousand years, and a thou- 
sand years as one day.” 


VIL 


THE EDUCATION OF THE WORLD BY HE- 
BREW, GREEK, AND ROMAN, IN THE 
DEVELOPMENT, RESPECTIVELY, OF (a) ’ 
CONSCIENCE ; (6) TASTE AND REASON ; 
AND (ce) DISCIPLINED WILL. 


Gal. IV, 4.—‘‘ When the fulness of the time was come, God sent 
forth his Son.’’ 


Preached Oct. 1, 1882, in St. Paul’s Church, Chestnut Hill, Philadelphia. 


We have been considering the development, lasting 
through many centuries, of certain races eminent for 
their influence upon humanity. This development 
has been traced chiefly in certain lines necessary to be 
considered before the full force and bearing of other 
developments should be noted. 

These other are now to be propounded. 

_ The development of a true monotheism among the 

Hebrew race has already been brought before you. 
It was evolved by means of a wonderful experience of 
that race, which may without claiming too much, in 
view of effects resulting from clearly existing causes, 
be called a training. 

Coincident with the progressive stages of the develop- 
ment of a true monotheism were progressive stages of 
the development of an enlightened conscience, a view 
of things which went beyond the mere admission of 
ceremonial inaccuracies, or transgressions of the stat- 
utes of a state religion, or fear of punishment at the 


PRINCIPLES OF AGNOSTICISM. (is: 


hands of an offended Deity ; and which. recognized 
that a personal turpitude, a degradation of the spirit- 
ual nature, was involved in wrong-doing ; something 
beyond the power of mere sacrificial acts to remedy, 
something that the blood of bulls and goats and the 
ashes of an heifer sprinkling the unclean could not 
cure. Sin grew to be looked upon as a spiritual dis- 
ease which could not be cured simply by treating the 
symptoms while careless of the spiritual poison which 
caused the symptoms. And so the theological term 
‘‘ yncleanness,’’ which at the first among them chiefly 
related to ceremonial incompetencies caused by exter- 
nal and sometimes accidental transgression of statute 
or ordinance, came to have in time a deeper meaning. 
It was connected with a feeling expressed in such 
words as these: ‘‘ Wash me thoroughly from mine 
iniquity and cleanse me from my sin. .. . Behold 
thou requirest truth in the inward parts. ... Hide 
thy face from my sins and blot out all mine iniquities. 
Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right 
spirit within me. Cast me not away from thy pres- 
ence ; and take not thy Holy Spirit from me. Re- 
store unto me the joy of thy salvation ; and uphold 
me with thy free Spirit. . . . Forthou desirest not 
sacrifice ; else would I give it : thou delightest not in 
burnt offering. The sacrifices of God are a broken 
spirit; a broken and a contrite heart, O God, thou 
wilt not despise :” words commonly ascribed to Da- 
vid, but which breathe far more of the chastened 
spirit of the captivity ; especially as the enforced ces- 
sation of sacrificial acts by the destruction of Jerusalent 
is alluded to at the end of the psalm. 


80 PRINCIPLES OF AGNOSTICISM 


These words voice a feeling which was growing in 
the race. Not that it grew in all alike, or even grew 
continuously. But it did grow and become enlarged 
in the higher minds of the race, the teachers of 
others. It was made the standard of religious sensi- 
bility and the true view of the nature of sin ; and, to 
a certain extent, it permeated the mind of the race. 
Their records show the steady increase of it: a fact 
which anyone can verify for himself by comparing the 
whole tone of legality, of obedience to authority, of 
the magnifying of ceremonial and sacrificial rite, of 
the prevailing force of the term ‘‘ uncleannegs’’ in the 
inosaic and other sacerdotal writings, with the whole 
tone of spirituality, of the belittling of ceremonial 
and sacrificial rite as such and the magnifying of 
heart-purity and moral rectitude, of the prevailing 
force of the term ‘‘ uncleanness,’’ in the writings of 
the post-captivity prophets. And even if the mass of 
the people did not come up to this standard, they 
were, at any rate, more or less taught and influenced 
by its existence. So that it may be said with truth 
that if the race-conscience slumbered it yet had an 
existence in a very much developed state ; so much so, 
that at a certain time in history, while sacrifice and 
offerings were performed with unexampled regularity, 
while worship in temple and synagogue was incessant, 
the appearance of two conspicuous personages pro- 
claiming the call to ‘‘repent,’’ created a blaze of 
excitement in Palestine, the headquarters of the race, 
and men of all classes, even hardened sinners, came 
to the teachers with the conscience-stricken question, 
‘* What are we to do ?” 


APPLIED TO EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 81 


These sermons are, from the nature of the case, a 
mere summary. But I think that a careful investiga- 
tion of the Hebrew history will fully corroborate, both 
from the Hebrew records and from other historical . 
sources, the statement that, as a matter of historical 
fact, conscience was trained and developed among the 
Hebrews in a measure far exceeding that in which it 
was developed and trained among any other race of 
antiquity ; and that at a certain time, curiously coinci- 
dent with the climax of other developments, there had 
been evolved a sensitiveness of conscience which not 
only pervaded that race but, in connection with its 
dispersion among various nations, influenced the way 
of feeling among other races. To such an extent was 
this true that, if any religious teaching were to arise 
which depended for its acceptance upon an enlight- 
ened and sensitive conscience in humanity, no time 
was more favorable for the appearance and the appeals 
of such teaching than the time of the first Roman 
Emperors. In short, no time was more favorable for 
such an appeal as this: ‘‘ If the blood of bulls and of 
goats, and the ashes of an heifer sprinkling the unclean, 
sanctifieth to the purifying of the flesh: how much 
more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eter- 
nal Spirit offered himself without spot unto God, purge 
: your conscience from dead works to serve the living 
God ?’ (Heb. 9: 13, 14). 

It might seem as if this supremacy of conscience 
had all along been, even before a singular training had 
developed it fully, lying dormant in the Hebrew char- 
acter ; for in the very fossil bed of the Hebrew lan- 
guage traces of it remain in the ordinary salutation of 


82 PRINCIPLES OF AGNOSTICISM 


one Hebrew to another in the olden time: ‘‘ Sha- 
lom !”—‘‘ Peace"? There is a volume of meaning in 
the formula. 


But another development, which may not improp- 
erly be called a race-development, had also been going 
on in the world. The Hellenic family of the Aryan 
race had its own marked characteristics. Great possi- 
bilities were latent in it from the earliest appearance 
on the stage of history—from the very first a brave, 
joyous, beauty-loving race: a race loving beauty in 
earth and sky and human form: a race whose lan- 
guage, in the rhythm of its verse, is melody itself, un- 
equalled in its charm by even the magic spell which 
Schiller, Goethe and Heine cast upon the language of 
the ‘‘ Fatherland’’: a race whose forms of beauty, 
chiselled out of cold marble and elaborated in stately 
temples even now, in their ruins, move the wonder- 
ment and captivate the admiration of the world; 
forms to be ever reverenced as models which the skill 
and taste of man cannot surpass. 

And not only was the love of beauty, the cultiva- 
tion of exquisite taste, evidenced by works of art, and 
joyous life crowned with flowers, and a language 
modulated by the very soul of music: that language 
was the vehicle to convey from mind to mind 
thoughts of clearest reasoning and depths of philosoph- 
ic research—reasoning and research which stamped 
the thinkers who need the language as the masters of 
the world in rhetoric and logic. If the verse of 
Homer stirred the martial ardor of the sons of 
Greece ; if the melody of Anacreon made their feasts 


APPLIED TO EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 83 


joyous, and added a lovelier bloom to the garlands 
which crowned their wine-cups ; if the Lesbian lyre 
alternately roused their souls to a righteous hatred of 
tyranny or steeped them in the very madness of love ; 
so did the prose of Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle teach 
them deep lessons in ethics, the polished periods of 
Pericles sway the tumultuous democracy of Athens, 
and the thundering sentences of Demosthenes drive 
into exile the scarcely less mighty debater who con- 
tended with him. To convince as well as to charm 
was the mission of the Greek mind and the language 
which it elaborated ; so that, if when Hebrew met 
Hebrew in the way his tender salutation was, ‘‘ Peace’’; 
when Greek met Greek, there was exchanged the ring- 
ing greeting, ‘‘ Chaired!’ ‘* Rejoice !” ‘‘ Rejoice in 
the beauty all around thee, in the keenness of thy wit, 
in the trenchant power of thy logic.’? And even - 
when the Roman Eagle had fastened his talons in the 
prostrate body of Greek civil polity, in all which per- 
tained to the cultivation of the intellect or the refine- 
ment of his taste the lordly Roman sat at the feet of 
the conquered Greek, as the disciple sits at the feet of 
his master. 

But before this period of universal Roman domina- 
tion, and the introduction by its means of Greek lan- 
guage and thought throughout the West, with all the 
results which flowed therefrom, another conquest was 
going on inthe East. A meteor, appearing first in 
Macedon, flashed across the sky of Asia ; and part of 
the sparkle which fell to the earth from its trail and 
was not extinguished, but rather gleamed with steady 
and increasing light, was Greek thought and the lan- 


84 PRINCIPLES OF AGNOSTICISM 


guage in which that thought diffused itself among 
men. ; 

It is a fact that, while the development of the 
human conscience was going on among the Ilebrews, 
the development of human taste and human reason 
was going on among the Greeks, and under their in- 
fluence, among humanity itself ; and it might appear 
somewhat singular that just about the time when con- 
science had been trained to a standard unknown be- 
fore, the cultivation of the intellect and the reason 
had reached its highest point, and the language in 
which the highest thoughts could be expressed, the 
clearest and most cogent reasoning could be con- 
ducted, was the medium of communication between 
man and man throughout the known world. That 
time was the time of the first Roman emperors. 

But we must note another development and the 
time of its culmination. 

About one hundred and fifty years before the He- 
brew state appeared to be exterminated, and whatever 
influence it had in the world to pass among the things 
that had been—a vain appearance, as events proved— 
a new and rising power began to make itself felt near 
the mouth of the Tiber, far away from the scene of 
Hebrew strife and Hebrew humiliation. Of course, 
under the guidance of Niebuhr and Mommsen and 
others, we all know that many of the details of the 
early so-called history of Rome are purely legendary. 
But we also know that, however this may be, no race, 
composite as it seems to have been from the begin- 
ning, ever developed so much, in ancient times at 
least, of what the very name of Rome means— 


APPLIED TO EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 85 


‘strength.”? And no race in ancient times so thor- 
oughly and widely developed that strength which 
comes from disciplined will. In this the Roman char- 
acter was essentially different from the Greek. 
Strength the Greek had, but it was the strength of 
impulse, not of sternly trained will. The difference 
between the two may be epitomized in the difference 
between the Greek Zeus and the Roman Jupiter, too 
often confounded together as one under different 
names, by reason of being the supreme deity of 
either’s college of gods. 

And no wonder they were different ; for one was 
simply the creature of Greek, the other of Roman, 
thought. The Greek Zeus, pleasure-loving, irascible, 
immoral, was pictured with his throne in Olympus, 
varying the satiety of his celestial pleasures by an 
occasional visit. to feast among ‘‘ the blameless Ethio- 
pians,’’ or hurling his angry thunderbolts upon the 
devoted heads of those who had moved his ire, or 
often driven to the necessity of assuming innumerable 
disguises in his pleasure-seeking visits to earth, in 
order to escape the watchfulness of his jealous spouse. 

Jupiter Capitolinus, on the contrary, was deemed 
by the Roman to be an invisible and invincible spirit 
of might enshrined in majesty within the sacred walls 
of Rome—the source of law, order, and victory : 
stern and awful in his seclusion, but stern and awful as 
the inspirer and the rewarder of the disciplined will, 
will obedient to law, will ready to lead to death on 
behalf of the state, will determined never to doubt of 
the eternal supremacy of Rome, will manifesting 
itself even in the language of greeting in which Ro- 


86 PRINCIPLES OF AGNOSTICISM 


man met or took leave of Roman; for while the He- 
brew said ‘‘ Peace,’’ and the Greek said ‘ Rejoice,’ 
the Roman said ‘‘ Salve,’’ ‘‘ Vale,’ ‘‘ Be strong.”’ 

No wonder that such a race, with such traditions—in 
spite of Italian, Etruscan, Gaul, or Carthaginian, in 
spite of Greek or Mauritanian or Asiatic, in spite of 
later fratricidal strife—should dominate the world. 

As a fact it did dominate the world, and by reason 
of the development of the disciplined will which ac- 
knowledged no defeat and quailed before no disaster : 
and with a certain measure of that will, at any rate 
with a knowledge of what it could effect, it leavened 
the peoples of a conquered earth. Yes, the time 
came when the earth was conquered and the world 
was at peace. Disciplined will had done its utmost, 
and through Rome not only the Roman will but the 
human will was developed and trained to a point not 
known. before. 

Curiously enough these results were attained at a 
time of strange culminations and concentrings of other 
developments. While the temple of Janus was shut 
fora brief time, and the military highways of Rome 
stretched in every direction from the seven hills to the 
boundaries of the earth, and men might travel freely 
over the face of the empire, never before was a time 
so propitious in its various combinations of results for- 
the spread of a faith which, without distinction of ; 
race or lineage, of political relationships, should appeal 
to all men as children of a common Father in heaven, 
and should appeal most effectually, and by means of a 
universally diffused language, to a developed con- 
science, an enlightened reason, and, what was needed 


APPLIED TO EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 87 


to insure its progress, a disciplined will which would 
know no defeat and would bear it onward through the 
ages, conquering and to conquer. 

And was all this blind chance ? 

Was all this simply uncalculated natural develop- 
ment, as that word is used in contradistinction to the 
supernatural ? 7 

Was there ever before or since such a combination 
of all the developments I have been tracing ? 

If such marks of design are not evidences of design, 
are we ever justified in looking for or in admitting 
such evidences ¢ 

And if there was design, who, only, could be the 
Designer ? . 

Does not all this culmination and concentration of 
various results necessary to make a still further result 
possible, supposing such a result to exist, cast a 
strange light upon that expression, ‘‘ When the fulness 
of the time was come, God sent forth his Son’? ? 


WITT 


THE EFFECT IN CONNECTION WITH THE 
CAUSE. 


Gen. IX, 27.—‘*God shall enlarge Japheth, and he shall dwell in 
the tents of Shem.’’ 


Preached Oct. 8, 1882, in St. Paul's Church, Chestnut Hill, Philadelphia. 


Ir is unquestionable that these words embody a 
very ancient tradition, to call it nothing more, of some 
relationship which in the future was to exist between 
Japheth and Shem. In the idiom of the records in 
which it is found it means a relationship between the 
descendants of the individual J apheth and of the indi- 
vidual Shem. This much igs certain, whatever else is 
meant. Something else is also evident on the face of 
the records, and that is that the writer or the compiler 
of them (it matters not which) understood them to 
refer to a spiritual relationship, if not exclusively yet 
at least very prominently ; for after giving a genealog- 
ical record, briefly, of the descendants of all three of 
the sons of Noah, the record returns to Shem (whom 
it has specified as ‘‘the father of all the children of 
Eber, the brother of J apheth the elder”), and gives a 
lineal descent of his posterity, ending with Terah, the 
father of Abram, Nahor, and Haran ; and then passes 
at once to the history of the spiritual as well as the 
temporal development of Abram and his descendants, 
the central personages of all the remaining records 


PRINCIPLES OF AGNOSTICISM. 89 


which we know collectively as the Old Testament. 
The race of Abram the Hebrew, then, is, for the pur- 
poses of the record, taken as the type af the family of 
Shem with which it is concerned. 

This ig noteworthy as showing what was in the 
mind of the writer or of the compiler of these gen- 
ealogies and of the tradition current among the pos- 
sessors of the records. For purposes of this argument 
we may set aside any questions of inspiration, and 
simply regard the matter as a literary fact, which, all 
things considered, may be regarded as a recorded be- 
lief in very ancient times that the descendants of 
Japheth were, some time or other, to be partakers of 
some spiritual privileges which were in some sort at 
one time the peculiar spiritual privileges of Shem, and 
that this participation was to be in consequence of an 
“enlargement”? of Japheth, whatever that might 
mean. 

Now we have seen, in the course of the present 
consideration of this subject, the development spirit- 
ually of the race of ‘‘ Abram the Hebrew,”’ the de- 
scendant of Shem; the especial features of which 
development were, first, the slow growth of a truly 
monotheistic conception of the Deity, a conception 
which alone made a universal religion possible ; and, 
secondly, the coincident progress and growing clear- 
ness of the Messianic idea, the belief in the coming of 
a specially ‘‘ Anointed One,” through whom in some 
way the diffusion of this universal religion was to be 
effected. This is of record as a literary fact. 

We have also seen the development (‘‘ the enlarge- 
ment’) of Japheth in the leading races of his de- 


090 PRINCIPLES OF AGNOSTICISM. 


scendants ; their preparation for the possibility of 
their ‘‘ dwelling in the tents of Shem’? in the evident 
meaning of that expression in the old records, 7.¢., a 
participation in the spiritual inheritance of Shem as 
typified by the Hebrew race. 

In short, we have seen the historic development of 
the possibility of the acceptance of a universal relig- * 
ious faith, a faith of the race of Shem preeminently, 
supposing such a faith to be offered to the acceptance 
of men without regard to those religious limitations 
which up to a certain time had existed to the complete 
impossibility of such a faith’s being accepted even if 
offered. 

In other words, we have seen marks, and therefore 
evidences, of some design, up to a certain point. 

Now the question is, ‘‘ Was there anything as a 
sequence to this which would rationally appear as the 
certificate of the design ?”’ ) 

And were both the preparation and the result 
unique in the history of men ? 3 
There was a certain definite time, definite within 
narrow limits, at which the preparation appeared to 
be complete, both in itself and in the circumstances of 
the world in which such preparation could be made 

available. | 

That time was the time of the beginning of what is 
known as the Roman Empire. 


There are certain records in existence which have a 
bearing upon this matter. They were in existence, 
some of them certainly, thirty years after ‘the 
fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Cesar,’ and 


APPLIED TO EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 5 


others of them not many years later. We have them 
substantially as they existed at that time: and there 
are several of them so undoubtedly the production of 
those to whom they were accredited that there has not 
been any question of their authenticity and genuine- 
ness by any competent to judge of such matters. 
Others, which are anonymous, and yet others concern- 
ing which there has been and is in the minds of some 
judges a doubt as to their being the production of the 
men whose names they bear at the present day, so 
thoroughly accord in the main with those whose 
authorship is undoubted, and are so evidently the pro- 
duction of those times, that for purposes of this inves- 
tigation it makes no matter who wrote them ; and for 
the following reason. I shall treat them as being (for 
present purposes) simply literary remains bearing wit- 
ness by their very existence and contents to certain 
facts. 

When it comes to account for the facts to which they 
bear witness, other considerations will be in order. 

The first to be noticed of these literary monuments 
which bear witness to a fact, and their witness is in- 
disputable, are what are known as the Epistles of 
Paul the Apostle to the Romans, to the Corinthians, 
and to the Galatians. 

The fact they bear witness to is that there were ex- 
isting at the time they were written, certain societies 
at Rome, at Corinth, and in Galatia, which differed 
from any societies known in the world thirty years be- 
fore, and which were commonly known by the name 
of Christian, from the fact of their being banded 
together in these different places as believers in and 


92 PRINCIPLES OF AGNOSTICISM 


followers of One who was commonly known among 
them as Jesus the Christ, or Messiah, who claimed to 
be a Son of David, and who was alleged to have been 
a teacher of remarkable power in Palestine not more 
than thirty years before ; about whose birth remarkable 
statements were made; who had been crucified by 
order of the Roman Procurator of Judea, Pontius 
Pilate ; and who, it was alleged, had risen from the 
dead on the third day after his crucifixion ; and who 
after various interviews with those that had been- his 
personal friends and followers before his death (in 
which interviews he gave them directions about the 
society he claimed to found and which he called the 
kingdom of God), had disappeared from their midst 
in a most remarkable manner, having, according to 
their statement, visibly ascended toward heaven until 
a cloud concealed him from their sight. 

The members of the societies to whom the letters 
referred to were written, performed certain acts said 
to be enjoined upon the followers of Jesus the Christ 
by himself; they were baptized in his name, and 
they periodically united in a ceremony of breaking 
and eating bread and drinking wine in commemoration 
of his death. These acts were badges of discipleship 
to him, and evidences of a determination on their 
part to shape their lives in accordance with his teach- 
ings ; and also of a trust on their part that in some 
way, by virtue of what he had done and by their pre- 
scribed use of it in heart and life, they would be sure 
of cleansing from sin and of being partakers of ever- 
lasting life. 

All these facts the letters in question bear witness 


APPLIED TO EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 93 


to. To some of them a bare allusion is made as to 
things perfectly familiar to those to whom the letters 
were written ; concerning others a great precision of 
instruction and explanation is used: and the whole 
tone of them is occupied with a new life here and 
hereafter in connection with and depending upon the 
life and death, and the resurrection and ascension of 
Jesus called the Christ. 

More than this. It was distinctly claimed that the 
whole personality and work of this central figure was 
a realization, a fulfilment, of the Messianic hopes em- 
bodied in the Hebrew Scriptures; and that it was 
through him and him only that the middle wall of 
partition had been broken down between different 
races and faiths, and that henceforth, in and through — 
- him, a universal faith was offered to the whole human 
race; that a condition of things had been reached 
when, as at no previous time, God had enlarged 
Japheth and he had begun to dwell in the tents of 
Shem. , 

But, furthermore, this faith was very exacting in its 
demands upon men. In some very important partic- 
ulars it had no parallel in this respect, before or at the 
time of its diffusion. The only approach to it had 
been in the spiritual system of which it claimed to be 
the outgrowth and the consummation, but which at 
that time had so degenerated, practically, that the 
summons to follow the new teaching was summed up 
in the call to ‘‘ repent.”’ } 

So far as all the rest of the world, outside of this 
spiritual system, was concerned, the contrast between 
the aims of the new faith and the average attainment 


94 PRINCIPLES OF AGNOSTICISM 


of those who professed it was most marked. We have 
the universal testimony of all contemporaneous writ- 
ers, whether in set terms or in the character of their 
writings, that there was a universal depravation of 
morals, a depth of moral baseness and impurity almost 
unknown before. In the new societies alluded to, and 
which at first had been composed exclusively of He- 
brews but which at the time Paul’s letters were writ- 
ten comprised a large number of non-Hebrews, there 
was the most marked contrast to this otherwise uni- 
versal moral turpitude ; and, as before remarked, all 
in consequence of discipleship to Jesus called the 
Christ. Instead of greed and self-seeking, the avowed 
aim of these societies was to cultivate charity and self- 
abnegation ; instead of envy, hatred, and malice, and 
revenge, to cultivate loving-kindness and forgiveness 
of injuries ; instead of giving way to lust and impur- 
ity, to practice self-restraint and purity not only of 
action but of word and thought ; and with all this, a 
willingness to suffer persecution for their faith and 
practice, counting this world but a short stage in the 
course of existence, and looking forward with con- 
fident hope to immortal life as a reward of faithfulness 
in this. 

Now, as a matter of fact, while some of these phe- 
nomena may have existed apart from these societies ; 
while a pure virtue, and noble aims, and high hopes, 
had here and there existed at previous times and under 
other systems ; it was in the combination and general 
effect of them all that the peculiar character of these 
new societies consisted. They were entirely unique in 
history. 


APPLIED TO EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 95 


Such results could not, in the nature of things, exist 
without some adequate cause. 

Now, besides the letters which have been mentioned 
and which reveal these facts to us, there are in exist- 
ence, and there were in existence at about the same 
time as those letters, certain other records which claim 
to account for the existence of the facts. 

We may (for present purposes) treat them simply 
as in the main reliable histories. 

One of them, called ‘‘ The Acts of the Apostles,”’ 
gives a sketch of the successive formation of these 
various Christian societies, from the time when the 
parent society of Jerusalem could be contained in a 
single room, up to the time when a very large number 
of the Hebrews in Palestine had embraced the new 
faith and practice, and then shows how the faith and 
practice were offered to and accepted by vast numbers 
of non-Hebrews, whose training had been of an en- 
tirely different character, and who were living in many 
various cities and towns of the Roman empire. 

And, just as the letters do, this book of the Acts 
refers everything to one personal life which claimed 
to be the life of the Christ or Messiah who was pro- 
claimed as ‘‘ to come”’ in the Hebrew Scriptures. 

But besides the letters and the historical book of 
the Acts, we have also (and they were in existence at 
about the time the letters and the Acts were written) 
besides another remarkable one written later, at least 
three separate biographical sketches, which have been 
ascribed to three distinct sources, and which bear the 
inarks of reliable independent testimonies, giving an 
account of the birth, the life and the death, together 


96 PRINCIPLES OF AGNOSTICISM 


with the alleged resurrection and ascension of the 
person to whom all of the societies looked up as their 
head, and whom they reverenced and worshipped as 
the arbiter of their destinies in this world and the 
next. Not only the facts but the avowed end and 
purpose of that life are given in these biographical 
sketches ; and the claim throughout is distinctly made 
that it was the life and work of the promised and at 
that time generally expected Messiah of the Old Tes- 
tament records. 

Whatever may be said of the correspondence of this 
life and work with the ideal which had been formed 
of it in those records, it is evident that to those who 
accepted it as that of the Messiah, this correspondence 
was proven, and it, and it alone, became the basis of 
all the marvellous results which followed then and 
which have followed since. So that we may say with 
a very clear-headed writer on this subject : 

‘“The question, and the only question for us to 
determine, is ‘ What is the correct significance and 
interpretation of this correspondence, being such as it 
is, neither more nor less? Is it a pure accident? Is 
it one of the freaks of chance? Is there no meaning 
in it whatever? Is it as purposeless and as meaning- 
less as the formations of the hoar frost on the window- 
pane or the marvellous combinations of the kaleido- 
scope? Or, is there a clue to its meaning? Does the 
Gospel narrative record the one event in history which 
is the interpretation of all history, and which, being 
so, was transacted on a plan of which indications had 
been given in the prophets and in the history of their 
times? Are we right in inferring the existence of a 


— 


APPLIED TO EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 97 


purpose which began to be carried out of old, and 
which in the fulness of the times was completed ? 
And was it that, from the nature of the case, this 
purpose, if it existed, could not be anticipated nor 
discovered till it was sufficiently matured, but that 
when it. was adequately fulfilled it revealed itself? 
This is at least a theory which would appear to be 
consistent with the facts, if indeed there is any other 
by which the facts as they exist can be explained. At 
all events, we are warranted in saying that unless there 
is a method more consonant with reason to be discoy- 
ered of accounting for the broad and patent Gospel 
facts, the historic existence of the Christ-idea for ages 
before Christ came, and the alleged realization of that 
idea in him, is no slight indication of its origin.”’ 

(Stanley Leathes, ‘“‘ The Religion of the Christ,” 
pp. 221, 222.) 

What that origin was, the power which planned 
and guided the world’s history through all its mazes 
by converging lines up to acertain point and then 
from that point onward produced an effect for which 
a divine cause alone would be adequate, about this 
we have only to end as we began, by being face to 
face with a fact represented as existing even as a result 
of the preaching of Paul the Apostle himself : ‘‘ Some 
believed the things which were spoken, and some 
believed not,’’. while the evidence for both classes 
was the same. 

One more consideration remains for us before the 
subject is complete, and that is the truth of the alleged 
fact of Christ’s resurrection—a consideration reserved 
for a future occasion. 


98 PRINCIPLES OF AGNOSTICISM 


With reference however to what has been already 
said in this course of sermons which has grown in 
amount beyond what I expected when I began, let me 
add a few words here. 

I started with a single definite object in view, 
namely, waiving all claim of inspiration of any records 
whatever, and waiving all claim upon miracles as a 
ground of argument, to investigate, in the light simply 
of admitted facts and combinations of facts, the ques- 
tion whether, all things considered, there is any 
adequate natural cause (as that term is popularly 
understood) which will account for the fact of the 
existence of the Religion of the Christ. The only 
alternative is a supernatural cause, as that term 1S 
popularly understood. If the cause is supernatural it 
can be no less than divine. I have laid certain facts 
before you, together with their interdependence and 
the sequence of their combinations. It is for you, 
the exercise of an unbiassed judgment, to determine 
each for him or her self, whether such presentation 
indicates, or does not indicate, the reasonableness of a 
moral certainty of the supernatural, 2.e., the divine, 
origin of the religion of the Christ, and to mould your 
lives accordingly. For if that moral certainty exist, 
grave issues depend upon the use made of it. 

In what I have said, I have been compelled by the 
very vastness of the subject to do no more than touch 
upon the heads of thought and argument in the mat- 
ter. Those heads may or may not be to you sugges- 
tive of further thought and more minute investigation. 
I claim to have culled from various sources, not a com- 
plete chain of evidences, but simply notes on evi- 


APPLIED TO EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 99 


dences, and only ask that this fact be borne in mind 
if to any of you occur omissions of certain matters of 
detail, omissions inevitable in such a general treat- 
ment of the subject, and which, in detail, are sup- 
plied in many excellent treatises. 

While each branch of the subject has been more 
fully treated elsewhere, I do not remember to have 
seen a bird’s-eye view of even as much of the whole 
field as I have tried to describe brought together in 
a brief summary such as this. Such a survey has 
been a comfort and a help to me. I shall be only 
too glad if in any degree it may have proved so 
to you. For myself, amid much that tends to be- 
wilder and perplex, to shake faith and weaken trust, 
to create doubt and produce suspense, I can truly say 
that so far as I have been able to investigate, the re- 
sults are summed up in what was said of old by one 
of his followers to Jesus of Nazareth, ‘‘ Lord, to 
whom shall we go? Thou hast the words of eternal 
life. And we believe and are sure that thou art that 
Christ, the Son of the living God.” (John, 6 : 68, 69.) 


EX: 


THE RESURRECTION OF CHRIST. 


1 Cor. XV, 17. Pipe, Christ be not eee your faith is vain ; ye 
are yet in your sins.’ 


Preached Oct. 15, 1882, in St. Paul’s Church, Chestnut Hill, Philadelphia. 


Tur man who wrote these words was perhaps as 
competent as any man of his time to form the opinion 
and to make the statement. 

The resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead is 
the keystone in the arch of Christian doctrine and 
Christian hope. There can be no Christianity, in any 
true sense of the term, without it. . 

If it be not a fact, the death of Jesus of Nazareth 
was the death simply of a martyr to the envy and 
hatred of his persecutors—on a par with the death of 
Socrates—nothing more if nothing less. 

If the resurrection of Jesus the Christ be a fact, 
then his death was the death of the Saviour of men. 

There is no middle ground to stand upon. 

If he rose from the dead, the seal is set to all the 
claims made for him by tance or by others. 

If he did not rise from the dead, then were both he 
who is alleged to have promised that he would, and 
they who bore witness that he did, nothing more than 
either self-deceived and saviieontits misleading others ; 
or, they were deliberate, and, considering the magni- 
tude of the interests at ene infamous impostors. 


PRINCIPLES OF AGNOSTICISM. 101 


This at any rate is the view taken and clearly 
expressed by Paul the Apostle, who deliberately wrote 
‘“‘ Tf Christ be not raised, your faith is vain ; ye are ° 
yetin yoursins. . . . If Christ be not risen, then is our 
preaching vain, and your faith is also vain. Yea, and 
we are found false witnesses of God ; because we have 
testified of God that he raised up Christ.’? (1 Cor. 
15:17, 14, 15.) We need not claim any ‘ inspira- 
tion’”’ for this statement, but simply that it was the 
honest, outspoken manliness of one who would not 
gain anything by indirection or by ignoring an un- 
pleasant alternative. 

Any ‘‘notes on Christian evidences’? would be 
utterly incomplete without dealing with this subject. 
In dealing with it, I propose to consider 

ist. Whether there be any antecedent probability 
of the alleged fact of the resurrection of Jesus the 
Christ ; and 

2d. Whether the objections argued against a belief 
in the fact are valid. 

If an antecedent probability can be shown for the 
reality of the alleged- fact ; if the objections urged 
against a belief in it can be shown to be such as are 
not in their nature necessarily valid ; if the testimony 
borne to its reality by those most competent to bear it 
is in its character that of testimony generally borne by 
truthful independent witnesses ; and if results may be 
attributed to it and to it alone as an effective cause ; 
then certainly, the case is not made out against the fact 
of Christ’s resurrection, but, on the contrary, the 
moral certainty is in its favor. You may remember 
that we begun by agreeing that mathematical certainty 


102 PRINCIPLES OF AGNOSTICISM 


was not in the nature of the case claimed or claimable 
in this whole argument. 

The determination of the first division of the sub- 
ject—that of antecedent probability—must depend 
largely upon individual opinion. That is freely con- 
ceded ; and yet the question of antecedent probability _ 
has a Sosa upon the subject. 

The determination of the second division—that a 
the testimony borne to the alleged fact of the resur- 
rection—has to do with the laws and the facts of 
evidence ; and here the question is not ‘‘ were the 
people who gave the evidence ‘inspired’? for to 
claim that would be begging the whole question : 
but it is, ‘‘ Did they tell the truth ?’ 

The consideration of alleged causes in connection 
with admitted results has to do with the question of 
moral certainty. 

I. To enter here into a consideration of antecedent 
probability would be simply to repeat all that I have 
said in the six sermons of the course preceding this 
one. To the cumulative evidence of a grand divine 
plan which the facts therein stated give, I refer. If 
there was that divine plan, then there was an antece- 
dent probability of any part of that plan necessary to 
produce its object, a resurrection from the dead in- 
cluded. If an alleged resurrection from the dead is 
seen to harmonize with that plan, in the light both 
of what went before and of what came after—and of 
that we are better able to judge than the men who pro- 
claimed the alleged fact of the resurrection—then the 
case of antecedent probability is made out. I think 
itis. But of that every one must, of course, judge 


APPLIED TO EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 1038 


for him or her self ; and with this reference to what 
has been said in the previous sermons I dismiss this 
portion of the subject, claiming for the antecedent 
probability only such weight as the evidence adduced 
may give it. 

II. The consideration of the validity of the objec- 
tions argued against a belief in the resurrection is the 
next point. We must clear the subject of its nega- 
tives before bringing forward its positives. 

The objections, so far as I understand the matter, 
are and can only be: 

(a) Such a thing as the resurrection of the dead 
could not take place. 

(>) It is not likely that it did take place. 

(c) The evidence that it did take place is contra- 
dictory, one part of it to another, and therefore 
insufficient to establish the fact. 

Let us consider them in order. 

(a) ** The resurrection from the dead could not 
take place. It is contrary to all human experience.”’ 
This proposition is nothing more nor less than a com- 
plete begging of the question. Its first clause is 
unscientific and its second clause is fallacious. Its 
precise force can be measured by an analogous state- 
ment, which we may put into the mouth of an un- 
travelled native of the tropics, where ice had never 
been seen : 

‘* That the water of a broad and deep river should 
ever become so solid that an army could cross it dry- 
shod is an impossibility. It is contrary to all human 
experience. ”’ 

He might be perfectly sincere in his conviction ; 


104 PRINCIPLES OF AGNOSTICISM 


but the trouble would be that the horizon of his 
knowledge as to possibilities was too narrow ; and 
what was simply apart from his experience was con- 
fidently asserted to be contrary to human experience. 
His negative is too sweeping to be valid. That objec- 
tion may be dismissed. 

(6) *‘ It is not likely that the resurrection took 
place. ”’ 

This is also pure assumption. A survey of the 
whole field convinces some, equally able to judge, 
that, all things considered, it was more likely than 
not. The objection is inconclusive ; is a matter of 
opinion ; and as a valid negative may be ruled out of 
court. 

We are therefore brought by easy stages to the third 
class of objections—the only ones which have any 
plausibility or standing in court, viz. : 

(c) ‘* The evidence that the resurrection did take 
place is contradictory, the one part of it to the other, 
and therefore insufficient to establish the fact.”’ 

With regard to this, several considerations present 
themselves. 

1. The evidence, such as it was, was sufficient to 
convince thousands of people who were contempora- 
neous with all the events in connection with the 
alleged facts, both before and after it was said to have 
taken place. 

2. The evidence came from eye-witnesses, after the 
alleged facts, of the appearance in life of one who had 
been killed and buried. They not only saw him, but 
talked with him, and in one instance touched him as 
a proof that it was really he. 


APPLIED TO EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 105 


3. These eye-witnesses were perfectly familiar with 
his person, as they had been his intimate friends for 
years. 

4. They expected nothing of the kind, and it was 
‘hard to convince them that their senses did not deceive 
them. 

5. The evidence of his reappearance on various 
occasions was given in just such a way, and with just 
such variations as to details as is ordinarily and natu- 
rally and in courts of justice accepted as evidence of 
independent, truthful testimony as to the main point 
at issue. 

6. Their own belief in the reality of the fact was 
so thorough that it transformed their characters and 
changed their whole scheme of life. 

¢. The record we have of their testimony is fur- 
nished by their contemporaries who were themselves 
conversant with the events of that time. These con- 
siderations certainly have a bearing on the character 
and weight of the evidence. But the objections to it 
must be considered, and given all the weight they can 
claim. 

For the sake of brevity I will quote them from a 
writer who has summed them up and who counts them 
as valid. He says: 

‘The statements which have come down to us 
as to when, where, by whom, and how often, Jesus 
was seen after his death, present such serious and 
irreconcilable variations as to prove beyond question 
that they are not the original statements of eye-wit- 
nesses, but merely the form which the original state- 
ments had assumed, after such transmission, thirty or 


106 PRINCIPLES OF AGNOSTICISM 


forty years after the event to which they relate. Let 
us examine them more particularly. It will be seen 
that they agree in everything that is natural and prob- 
able, and disagree in everything that is supernatural 
and difficult of credence. All the accounts agree that 
the women, on their matutinal visit to the sepulchre, 
found the body gone, and saw some one in white 
raiment who spoke to them. They agree in nothing 
else: | 

(1.) They differ as to the number of women. 

(2.) They differ as to the number of persons in 
white raiment who appeared to the women. 

(3.) They differ as to the words spoken by the ap- 
paritions. 

(4.) They differ in another point. According to 
Matthew, Luke, and John, the women carried the 
information as to what they had seen, at once to the 
disciples. According to Mark ‘‘ they said nothing to 
any man.”’ 

(5.) They differ as to the parties to whom Jesus 
appeared. 

(6.) They differ as to the locality. The conclusion 
of the writer is that the resurrection of Christ from 
the dead was not a fact, because of this variance in 
the testimony given by different people, all of whom 
however agreed in asserting the fact. 

Now it would be easy, and ina perfectly fair way, to 
account for this variance in testimony: as for instance, 
that one person dwelt more on one detail than 
another ; and that there really was the variance, at 
different times, of appearances and words, etc., etc. 
This has been done. 


APPLIED TO EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 107 


But I propose to test the validity of the objections 
to a belief in the fact itself and its main bearings 
(upon which all the writers of the New Testament are 
agreed, be it remembered, and to which the disciples 
of Jesus all appealed as the only ground of their 
changed views and actions) by citing two parallel 
eases ; parallel, that is, in the existence of a fact and 
the varying if not contradictory testimony. which was 
borne to it. 

Very few educated people have any doubt of the 
existence and general effect upon the destinies of 
Europe at the time, of an historical personage known 
as Napoleon Bonaparte. And yet Archbishop Whately 
in a little treatise called ‘‘ Historic Doubts as to 
Napoleon Bonaparte,’’? and which created some stir 
when it was published, showed that the treatment of 
the testimony of contemporaries toward him and his 
deeds, exactly following unbelieving treatment of the 
testimony of contemporaries toward the resurrection 
of Jesus Christ, would as thoroughly—no more 
thoroughly and no less thoroughly—disprove the fact 
of Napoleon’s existence, as the fact of Christ’s resur- 
rection was and is disproved by an appeal to the 
variance of the testimony as to details. The two cases 
were shown to be exactly parallel as regards the char- 
acter of the testimony and what it proved or dis- 
proved, 7.¢., an alleged fact. And the argument loses 
none of its force by time. 

Another case parallel in this respect is one which 
came within the range of my own observation and 
experience during the past- summer, and I pre- 
sume to cite it simply because of the directness 


108 PRINCIPLES OF AGNOSTICISM 


of the testimony it enables me to bear, not as mat- 
ter of hearsay, but because of personal participa- 
tion in the matter throughout ; and it was a matter 
concerning which public interest was more or less 
aroused throughout the country, and the associated 
press had made careful provision for a full and ac- 
curate report of the proceedings. This report might 
naturally be expected to be marked with fewer varia- 
tions, as published by the newspapers of the country, 
than any statement about an event not at all expected 
and for the preparation of which statement no pro- 
vision had been made. 

T allude to the meeting of the National Civil Service 
Reform League at Newport on the 2d of August, 
1882. Especial care was taken to have a careful 
registry made of the members of the League who 
were in attendance. <A corps of trained stenographic 
reporters was present. They prepared their notes 
under the supervision of the Secretary of the League, 
who was minutely conversant with its affairs, so that 
any natural ignorance of the reporters as to details 
might not mar the accuracy of the record. I was 
present and took part in all the proceedings, from the 
beginning to the end; and after the session I carefully 
collected and read three or four Boston papers, three 
or four New York, and three or four Philadelphia 
papers ; all of which had made arrangements to gain 
a knowledge of the proceedings. 

And no two of all those papers agreed in all their 
statements ; and more than that, some made positive 
misstatements. 


In specifying how they differed, I shall follow the 


APPLIED TO EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 109 


specifications given above of the differences in the 
testimony given by contemporaries to the fact of 
Christ’s resurrection. 

(1.) They differed as to the number of delegates in 
the town. 

(2.) They differed as to the number of delegates 
taking part in the meeting. 

(3.) They differed as to the words spoken by the 
presiding officer. 

(4.) They differed as to sources of resolutions which 
came before the meeting. | 

(5.) They differed as to the members who favored 
or opposed certain resolutions which came before the 
meeting. 

(6.) They did not differ as to locality, for the simple 
reason that the business of the meeting was transacted 
in one place and on one day, and was not spread out 
over forty days and transacted, some of it in one place, 
some of it in another. 

(7.) One prominent paper, generally very full and 
accurate in its news, stated in its editorial columns 
that its own city was unrepresented at the meeting ; 
whereas some other papers stated (as was the fact) that 
four representatives were present from that city, two 
of whom were on important committees which shaped 
and, so far as committees could, controlled the whole 
action of the meeting. 

Here then we have the same, or rather exaggerated, 
discrepancies which we have in the testimony as to the 
fact and the power of the resurrection of Christ. 

And if any one on the strength of such discrepancies 
were to try and convince me that no such meeting 


110 PRINCIPLES OF AGNOSTICISM 


had taken place, and should ask me on any grounds 
not to say that it had, there could be only one answer, 
the same given many years azo, both with reference 
to the fact and to the power emanating from the fact : 
‘‘T cannot but speak the things which I have seen 
and heard.’’ 

Any sane man, with a knowledge of men and of 
the character of human testimony, would very readily 
account for the discrepancies in the accounts of that 
meeting ; by admitting that some accounts were fuller 
than others ; that some reporters were more interested 
in stating certain facts or in speaking of certain people 
than others ; and so on to the end of the chapter: and 
the very variations would be taken ‘as evidences of 
independent testimonies about a fact, the existence of 
which the combined testimonies would only confirm. 

One such known case ‘Sweeps to the winds the 
attempt to invalidate on such grounds the testimonies 
as to the fact of the resurrection of Christ. 

And as to its power, that has for centuries been 
vindicating itself in countless ways. 

I know and sadly admit the many perversions and 
misrepresentations of the religion of the Christ by 
those who claim to follow it. 

I know and abhor the many satanic crimes which 
have been committed in its name. 

I know and bewail the too frequent consequences 
of having a priceless treasure contained in earthen 
vessels, 

But I also know that a perversion or misrepresenta- 
tion involves the fact of there being something of 
good to pervert and misrepresent ; that a crime which 


APPLIED TO EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. ime 


borrows a good name to palliate it acknowledges 
thereby the good that is represented by the name ; 
that the baseness of the material enclosing the treasure 
does not detract from the value of the treasure—whose 
very value, moreover, exposes it to the danger of 
counterfeit. No one takes the trouble to counterfeit 
a worthless thing. All this is part of the mingled 
good and evil in human nature, and exists and will 
exist as long as human nature does. : 

We see its operation in many ways, in secular mat- 
‘ters, in the history of more than one political party 
in more than one portion of the world, in ancient 
and in modern times. 

A few men, animated by the power of a wholesome 
and a mighty truth, banded together to make that 
truth operative for good to their country, begin a 
struggle against existing evils and in the face of per- 
secution and obloquy. The mighty power of the 
wholesome truth animating them in time makes itself 
felt ; men come to believe in it and to act upon it ; 
and the small band swells into a mighty host control- 
ling, and for good, the destinies of a country. The 
very change from insignificance to power allures many 
who care for no principle but love to share power ; 
and the world has furnished more than one instance of 
a political party which from good and pure beginnings 
has ended in being the embodiment of all want of 
principle, save only that of preserving its own power, 
and that sometimes by the most infamous means. 
History is full of such examples. But history is also 
full of regenerations ; regenerations brought about by 
the ever indwelling power of the good and the true, 


112 PRINCIPLES OF AGNOSTICISM 


which, in order to preserve the blessings of good 
government for the masses, changes forms and agen- 
cies. The power for good still exists, and breaks out 
ever in new manifestations of its vital force. 

So has it been, so will it be, with the power of 
Christ’s resurrection. : 

Obscured in one place, it shines brightly in another. 
The forms of one age may be the caricatures of 
another, none the less useful as forms before they 
became caricatures. | 

The formulated dogmas of one age become the " 
heresies of afuture age, and vice vers. The honored 
name may be forged to a worthless bond with a view 
of deceiving men into a trust in its value—all the while 
such bond bearing witness to the value of the name 
inscribed upon it. 

Selfish, unprincipled, covetous, lustful men, may 
‘“steal the livery of heaven to serve the devil in” : 
but it is still the livery of heaven in which they trick — 
theinselves, and if it were not they would not care to 
use it. : 

Such a state of things was clearly foreseen and 
clearly predicted both by the Christ and by his 
Apostles. Such a state of things must in some way 
or other exist as long as men are free agents, moral 
creatures and not machines: and every moral creature 
has in him the possibilities of immorality. 

But for eighteen centuries, now, the power of 
Christ’s resurrection has been a real power in the 
world. No power on earth—and every power has 
tried to the utmost—has been able to extirpate it. 

It has won for itself, in its life through ages dark 


9 


APPLIED TO EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY 113 


and bright, the place of one of the phenomena of 
existence. 

As a phenomenon it claims from scientific minds 
the proposition of a cause. And in view of all which 
pertains to it, both of preparation and of sequence, 
what cause, on any fair grounds of evidence, has in its 
favor a moral certainty—the natural? or the super- 
natural 2—the human? or the divine? Yes, ‘‘ Now 
Christ ¢s risen from the dead and become the first- 
fruits of them that slept. For, since by man came 
death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead. 
As in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made 
alive. . . . Thanks be to God, which giveth us 
the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ ! There- 
fore, my beloved brethren, be ye steadfast, unmovable, 
always abounding in the work of the Lord, forasmuch 
as ye know that your labor is not in vain in the 
Lord.”’ 


PREFATORY NOTE. 


THE reader will not fail to notice that in the follow- . 
ing sermon the Scriptures of the Old and New Testa- 
ment are appealed to in a very different way from that 
in which they were appealed to in the foregoing 
sermons. In those, a ground was taken, for argu- 
ment’s sake, which would be admitted by any intelli- 
gent unbeliever, viz., that, whatever else they might 
be, they would Sky be Rorealed to as mere literary 
remains. 

In this, the appeal is such as to be admitted only by 
those who believe the Scriptures to have a sacred, 
and in matters pertaining to religious truth, an au- 
thoritative character. 

It must also be remembered that a primitive Hen- 
OTHEISM was developed gradually into a true Monorue- 
IsmM among the Hebrews. 


xe 


-THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF THE 
EEN LEY’: 


Romans I, 20.—‘‘ The invisible things of Him from the creation 
of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things which 
are made, even His eternal power and Godhead.” 


Preached in St. Paul's Church, Chestnut Hill, Philadelphia, on the morning of 
Trinity Sunday, June 12, 1881, and repeated in the same place on Trinity 
Sunday, June 4, 1882. 


Tus certainly is a remarkable statement, if we but 
pause to consider what it means. The translation 
follows very closely the words of the Greek: and 
perhaps a slight transposition of that order may bring 
out more clearly its exact force in English: ‘‘ The 
invisible things of Him, even His eternal power and 
Godhead, are, since the creation of the world, clearly 
seen, being understood by the things which are 
made.”’ 

This means not simply that God’s power is revealed 
by and in the creative act or series of acts by which 
the world and what it contains have had their being ; 
but it also means that his eternal Godhead—the mode 
of his being—is clearly seen and may be understood 
by what He has created. 

In other words, there are analogies between the 
mode of God’s being and the mode of the existence of 
created things ; and understanding the latter is a help 
to understanding the former. 


116 THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF THE TRINITY. 


I believe that this way of putting the statement of 
the text is a perfectly fair one, free from any wrench 
to make it fit some particular theory. Indeed, it is 
difficult to see what else the words can mean. 

If you will examine the whole argument of this and 
the following chapters of St. Paul’s Epistle to the 
Romans to the end of the eleventh chapter, it will be 
seen that he is dealing with facts based upon two 
different sorts of revelation, or drawing aside of the 
veil which covers God—the one by the Scriptures, 7.e., 
the words of ‘‘ Holy men of-old who spake as they 
were moved by the Holy Ghost,’’ a revelation which 
to this extent had been vouchsafed to the chosen 
people alone ; and the other by the works of creation, 
a revelation given to all, to those who had the Law 
and the Prophets, and also to those who had them not. 

Obviously, this is suggestive of applications as varied 
and boundless as the works of. creation ; and it is my 
purpose this morning simply to touch upon one point, 
which is a matter of revelation in the Holy Scriptures 
as we now have them in the Old and New Testaments, 
and is also a matter of revelation in works of creation 
—lI mean the fact and the doctrine of the Trinity— 
and to bring these two sorts of revelation together so 
as in some measure to illustrate the meaning of the 
text, and to learn how a knowledge of the being of 
God may be (in some measure) understood by a 
knowledge of ‘the law of created things. I say ‘in 
some measure’ understood, by reason of perfectly 
obvious and necessary limitations. 

Let us begin with certain express statements of 
Holy Writ ; and I shall honestly strive not to use 


THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF THE TRINITY. aN ey 


them in the merely ‘‘ proof text’? way, but as being, 
each, fairly representative of a whole body of state- 
ments. 

I. In the first place, we have as the fundamental: 
doctrine of the Old revelation in the Law, which 1s 
carried on through the Psalms and the Prophets, and 
through the New Testament, the Unity of God ‘as 
the one perfect and eternal Spirit, in himself invisible 
to mortal eyes—the Personal Love, Life, Truth, Light, 
‘in whom is no darkness at all.’ This corresponds 
entirely with the purest and highest idea the human 
mind can form of the one uncreated infinite God.” 
(Hist. Doct. Future Life, Alger, p. 297.) 

This gives us an idea of the Substance, the Substan- 
tia, the Underlying, the Essential, of Divinity or 
Godhead. 

‘Hear, O Israel, Jahveh our God is one.”” (Deut. 
6: 4.) 

‘¢ No man hath seen God at any time.’’ (John, 1: 
18, the words of John.) 

‘God is a Spirit.” (John, 4: 24, the words of 
Christ as reported by John.) | | 

‘‘ Now to the King of the ages, immortal, invisible, 
the only wise God.’ (Paul to Timothy, 1: 1, LG) 

‘©The Blessed and only Potentate, the King of 
kings and Lord of lords ; who only hath immortality, 
dwelling in the light which no man can approach 
unto; whom no man hath seen nor can see,’ (1 
Tims 6 2415,-16.) 

These statements will fairly stand for, and will recall 
to your minds a whole body of statements of which 
the truth here set forth forms the basis. 


118 THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF THE TRINITY. 


II. But we have, in the Old Testament as in 
the New, another body of statements to the effect 
that this God, ‘invisible, dwelling in light which no 
man can approach unto, whom no man hath seen nor 
can see,’’ did at various times and in various ways 
and under various forms, reveal himself to men so as to 
be apparent to their intellectual perception or their 
bodily senses. They could not and did not perceive 
the ‘‘ Substance” or ‘‘ Substantia,’? or underlying 
Deity as such, but as the emanation of Deity in Forms 
or Modes which overlay the Deity. In the Old Tes- 
tament, for instance, the name given to what of Deity 
was communicable to man by means of human sense, 
either physical or spiritual, is ‘the Angel (or mes- 
senger) of Jahveh,”’ or “‘ the Angel of his presence.” 

E.g. In the visit of ‘‘ three men’’ to Abraham, 
before the destruction of Sodom, it is distinctly stated 
that this was an appearance of Jahveh to him; and 
one of the three uses language in the first person, 
speaking as Jahveh himself. (Gen. 18.) 

Again, in Isaiah 63: 7-9, the prophet uses this 
language concerning Jahveh and his dealings with his 
people, “‘I will mention the loving-kindness of 
Jahveh, and the praises of Jahveh, according to all 
that Jahveh hath bestowed upon us, and the great 
goodness toward the house of Israel which he hath 
bestowed on them according to his mercies, and ac- 
cording to the multitude of his loving-kindness. For 
he said, ‘Surely they are my people, children that 
will not lie ;? so he was their Saviour. In all their 
affliction he was afflicted, and the Angel of his 
presence saved them ; in his love and in his pity he 


THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF THE 'RINITY. 119 


redeemed them ; and he bare.them and earried them 
all the days of old.’? And there are many passages 
in the Old Testament in accord with these. 

What is meant—or rather, Who is meant by the 
One thus alluded to as the Manifestation of God to 
men—is more clearly stated in the New Testament, 
and notably by the proem to the Gospel according to 
St. John, where he is called the Logos, or Word, of 
God. 

‘In the beginning was the Logos, and the Logos 
was with God, and the Logos was God. The same 
was in the beginning with God. All things were 
made by him, and without him was not anything 
made that was made. In him was life, and the life 
was the light of men.’’ (John 1 : 1-4.) 

Now it must be_remembered that this form of state- 
ment is not distinctively Christian. Almost the same 
words—certainly the same facts—are uttered by Philo, 
a Jewish philosopher of the first century. E.g. ‘‘ The 
Logos is the first begotten Son.’’ ‘* Nothing inter- 
venes between the Logos and God,”’ *‘ Of the world, 
God is the cause by which, the four elements are the, 
material from which, the Logos is the instrument 
through which, the goodness of the Creator the end 
for which, it (the world) was made.’’ (Alger Hist. 
Doct. Future Life, p. 297.) 

Compare these statements (and there are many 
similar ones) of Philo with what has been quoted from 
St. John, and also with this from the opening of the 
Epistle to the Hebrews (which I take the liberty of 
translating literally) : ‘‘ God, who at sundry times and 
in divers manners spake in time past unto the fathers 


120 THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF THE TRINITY. 


in prophets, hath in these last days spoken unto us in 
a Son, whom he hath appointed heir of all things, by 
whom also he constituted the ages, who being the. 
brightness of his glory, and the express image of his 
Substance’ (not ‘‘ Person,’’ as in the A. V.; the 
word is a technical one, ‘‘ hypostasis,’’? not ‘* pros- 
Opon’’) ete. 

_ Now, as I said above, all this is not distinctively 
Christian. It was held, as we have seen, by those 
who recognized only the Old Testament as ‘‘ Script: 
ure.’ 

What is distinctively Christian is this : ‘* The Logos ~ 
was made flesh,’ in Jesus of Nazareth: as St. Paul 
also writes, ‘* Christ Jesus, who, being in the form of 
God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God ; 
but made himself of no reputation, and took upon him 
the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of 
men ; and being found in fashion as a man, he huni- 
bled himself, and became obedient to death, even the 
death of the cross. Wherefore God also hath highly 
exalted him and given him a name which is above 
every name ; that at the name of Jesus every knee 
should bow, of things in heaven and things in earth 
and things under the earth; and that every tongue 
should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory 
of God the Father.’’ (Phil. 2 : 5-11.) 

Tart is the Christian application of the doctrine of 
the Logos, which, ‘‘in all its degrees and phases, cir- 
cumstantially and essentially, from first to last, is the 
revelation of God. God himself, in himself, is 
conceived as absolutely withdrawn beyond the appre- 
hension of men in boundless immensity and inaccessible 


THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF THE TRINITY. 121 


secrecy. His own nature is hidden, as a thought is 
hidden in the mind ; but he has the power of reveal- 
ing it, as a thought is revealed by speaking it in a 
word. That uttered word is the Logos, and is after- 
ward conceived of as a person, and as creative ; then 
as building and glorifying the world. All of God 
that is sent forth from passive concealment into active 
manifestation is the Logos. . . . The Logos is 
the hypostasis of the ‘ unfolded portion,’ ‘ the reveal- 
ing power,’ the ‘ self-showing faculty,’ the ‘ manifest- 
ing action’ of God. The essential idea, then, concern- 
ing the Logos is that he is the means through which 
the hidden God comes to the cognizance of his 
creatures. In harmony with this prevailing philoso- - 
phy, one who believed the Logos to have been 
incarnated in Christ would suppose the purpose of his 
incarnation to be the fuller revelation of God to men.”’ 
(Hist. Doct. Future Life, p. 298.) 

And this is just the belief and the supposition of 
all of the New Testament. I need cite only one 
statement of it, which epitomizes all the others : ** No 
man hath seen God at any time. The only begotten 
Son, who is in the bosom of the F ather, HE HATH 
DECLARED nim. (John 1 : 18.) 

II]. But again, God is not only, as to his Being 
- and his Manifestation, thus spoken of in our Script- 
ures; but we have, besides, such descriptions of him 
as ‘The Spirit,”’ ‘The Holy Spirit,” “* The Spirit 
of God,’ ‘“‘ The Holy Ghost.” 

Here I must pause to remind you that all these 
different words are simply translations of the word 
which means ‘ breath,’? ‘‘ breathing,”’ ‘‘ wind.’’ The 


122 THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF THE TRINITY. 


essential idea of it is not what we popularly call 
‘* spirit’? as opposed to ‘‘ matter,’’? or ‘ ghost” as 
involving the idea of an unmaterial ‘‘ apparition,”’ but 
simply the idea of trvine powrr. Take, for instance, 
the statement at the beginning of Genesis—‘‘ And the 
Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.’ 
The literal meaning is ‘‘ a breath of God moved over 
the waters,’”? and that vrraL ForRcE, so designated, © 
evolved cosmos out of chaos. And s0, everywhere 
throughout the Scriptures, we find these designations 
of God used where life-giving power, or a divine vital 
force is referred to. All spiritual goodness in men is 
described as the operation of the Divine “ Spirit?’ — 
or breath, or vital force, in them. And this is true of 
the Old Testament as well as the New. 

But there is one remarkable passage in the New 
Testament which has a direct bearing on the line of 
thought I wish to unfold. Itisin John 7 : 37-89, “In 
the last day, that great day of the feast, Jesus stood 
and cried saying ‘if any man thirst, let him come 
unto me and drink. He that believeth on Me, as the 
Scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers 
of living water.’ But this spake he of the Spirit 
which they that believe on him should receive : jor 
the Holy Ghost was not yet (given), because that Jesus 
was not yet glorified.”’ If you will look at the passage 
you will see that the word “ given” is printed in italics 
which shows that it is not in the original Greek ; and 
the passage really means “‘ for the Holy Spirit was 
not, yet, because that Jesus was not yet glorified.” 
The verb in this place is the past tense of the verb 
‘“ to be,”’ not the passive voice of the verb “to give.”’ 


THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF THE TRINITY. 123 


What can this mean? Not, surely, that there had 
been no divine vital force exercised by God upon 
men: but, that the full measure of that life-giving 
power was witheld until the incarnated Logos should 
have passed through his humiliation and, by his 
returning to the right hand of the Majesty on high, 
should have led captivity captive and received gifts 
for men. Then and not till then was possible the 
FULL MANIFEsTATION of God to men in the new relations 
which the Christ had, by his completed revelation of 
his consubstantiality with the unseen God established 
between God and man. Substance (Substaniia) and 
Form in the divine manifestation being combined in 
the perfected work of the Logos, necessarily revealed 
a newly manifested element or ‘‘ Person’’ of the Being 
of God, a manifestation the beginning of which Pen- 
tecost keeps in the memory of the Church. 

Here I must ask you to remember the exact mean- 
ing of the words ‘‘ Substance”’ and ‘‘ Person’’ as used 
theologically in this connection. They are purely 
technical terms, which in their English dress and com- 
mon usage are but too apt to mislead in their applica- 
tion to matters of theology. 

In its popular use, ‘‘ Substance’’ involves the notion 
of ‘‘ body,”’ ‘‘ matter,’’ ‘‘ texture,” ‘‘ material,” and 
the like, as opposed to what is unmaterial. This is 
not its theological meaning. 

In its popular use, ‘‘ Person” has come to have 
more nearly the meaning of ‘‘an individual,’ or 
‘* bodily form ;”’ as when we say ‘‘ Such a one is a 
person of merit,’’ or, ‘‘ Such a one has a fine person.’’ 
This is not its theological meaning. 


124 ° THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF THE TRINITY. 


‘* Substance,’’ in this latter sense, is simply an 
Englished form of the technical Latin ‘‘ substantia,”’ 
equivalent to the Greek ‘‘ hypostasis,’’ and means that 
which wnderlies anything as its very essence, that 
without which the thing would not be. 

‘* Person,’’? in theology, is simply the Englished 
form of the Latin ‘‘ persona,” which originally 
meant ‘‘a mask,’’ and then that which any one was 
not in himself but, in his relations to others : as when 
we speak of the *‘ dramatis persone,’’ or characters of 
a drama. With this premised, understood and re- 
membered, we shall the more clearly see what is 
meant by some of those formule by which men have 
tried in the technical language of theology to express 
what the Scriptures teach as ¢hezr revelation of God ; 
as for instance, 

‘* We worship one God in Trinity, te Trinity in 
Unity, 

‘* Neither confounding the Persons nor dividing the 
Substance’’ (that is, neither confounding the relation- 
ships nor dividing the underlying essential). 

‘* The Father is made of none, neither created nor 
begotten. 

‘The Son is of the Father alone, not made nor 
created, but begotten. 

a The Holy Ghost is of the Father and of the Son, 
neither oe: nor created, nor begotten, but pro- 
ceeding.”’ 

This is perhaps the shortest and most complete 
formulation of a belief concerning what the Scriptures 
teach of ‘‘the invisible things Ws; Him, even His 
eternal Power and Godhead.”’ 


THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF THE TRINITY. 125 


What shall we say of the rest of St. Paul’s assertion 
concerning these things—that they are, ‘< Since the 
creation of the world clearly seen, being understood by 
the things which are made ”? 

In the first, place, I think Alford’s rendering ** per- 
ceived”? instead of ‘‘ clearly seen’’ is a necessary 
modification of the statement inthe A. V. He cor- 
rectly says the word does not mean ‘¢ ¢ plainly seen ’ 

_ | the sense is rather that of ‘ taking a survey of,’ 
and so apprehending or perceiving.’’? This is nearer 
the truth than ‘clearly seen ;’? and the words will 
then convey the allegation that by means of created 
things we may procure for ourselves an apprehension 
of the Trinity in God. It must, of necessity, be but 
an imperfect apprehension ; yet, still, the survey 1s 
one that will throw light upon the subject and the 
fact. 

A very siniple experiment will, if accurately per- 
formed, show how a trinity subsists in a created thing 5 
and a trinity, too, analogous, in its finite measure, to 
that which is theologically said to subsist in God. 

Suppose you take a flower—a rose for example. 
Before you begin the experiment, let us imagine (what 
*s no violent stretch of imagination), that a skilful 
painter has reproduced upon canvas an exact likeness 
of that rose in size, color, shape. Let us suppose this 
done so skilfully that, if the actual rose is placed beside 
the painted image of it which has been deftly thrown 
into relief by proper treatment of light and shade, you 
cannot at a little distance distinguish, from appearance 
at-least, which is the rose and which its likeness. This_ 
is not only easily supposable ; it is an actual expe- 


126 THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF THE TRINITY. 


rience. When you have secnred this perfect likeness, 
put the actual rose into a retort constructed properly 
for the purpose, and apply heat until every vestige of 
the flower has disappeared, or at most a trace of ashes 
remains visible. Have you destroyed the rose? In 
one sense, yes ; in another, not at all. Its Jorm has 
disappeared, its fragrance is gone ; but its substance, 
its ‘‘ substantia,” that which is the underlying essen- 
tial, is still there ; every particle of matter, solid, 
liquid, or gaseous, which belonged to the rose when 
you put it into the retort is still there, although you 
cannot see it, perhaps. 

Here then you have substance (in the technical 
sense) without form. 

Suppose now (such things have happened) a bee 
comes into the room, and, flying to the picture of 
your rose, tries to alight upon it and extract honey 
from its depths. The form of the rose has proven 
itself perfect : it is a rose to all appearance : but it is 
the form without the substantia of the flower—as the 
bee finds out. 

Before you tried the experiment, you had, when 
form and substance were united, a third something in 
_ the rose which gave it a charm of odor or velvety soft- 
ness in touch utterly wanting when form and substance 
were disunited. And so we can see, by a scientifically 
ordered experiment, that the underlying substantia of 
a rose is unappreciable as a rose until the logos of 
form, overlying the underlying substance, manifests it 
to be a rose: and in and from this union there is a 
third power of some sort in that one rose which is 
dependent upon the union of its substance and form. 


THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF THE TRINITY. 127 


Here then are three distinct elements or ‘‘ persons’ 
in the existence of one rose. 

Its unity is, after its created kind, a perfect trinity. 

Another fact in nature may furnish an illustration 
of the same truth. A wave of ether has its one un- 
divided substantia or underlying essence, whatever it 
may be ; and yet that may exist without our power to 
apprehend it. But let the substance (still using the 
word in its technical sense) of that ether-wave be 
agitated in a certain way, and we become conscious of 
what we know as the sun’s light. Agitated by a 
different mode, the same wave, along with its revela- 
tion of light, is also revealed to us by what we know 
as the sun’s heat. The union of this light and heat 
in the same wave (under certain circumstances) reveal 
to us a third something, proceeding from the union, 
viz., actinism, or the chemical force of the sun’s 
rays, distinct from light and heat, but not manifesting 
itself apart from the union of the other two. 

Here, then (by these two homely illustrations), we 
may be helped to a clearer apprehension of high 
spiritual truths ; truths which have been obscured, 
perhaps, by the way in which they have too often 
been put, and by a misunderstanding of the true 
meaning of the words in which they have been stated. 
_ [have wished to propound them reverently, although 
to show the bearing of the illustrations upon those 
same truths it has been necessary to use, in so doing, 
some terms which our reverential feelings reserve for 
only our thoughts and words about God. These illus- 
trations are simply examples of many which might be 
used to show that, in a certain true sense, there is a 


128 THE CURISTIAN DOCTRINE OF THE TRINITY. 


trinity or triunity in the nature of created things as 
they have come from God; as though the revealed 
law of his own Being had been projected in some 
sort upon the law of being of his workmanship—his 
own creatures : and it looks very much as if by means 
of the progress of real science, 2.e., a knowledge of 
the works of God, a very much enlarged meaning may 
be developed out of that saying ‘* From nature up to 
nature’s God.”’ 

For, after all, is not that our commonplace, every- 
day mode of saying what the Apostle has not hesitated 
to put in thisway, when alluding to the misuse of 
knowledge in those ‘‘ who hold the truth in unrighte- 
ousness ;’’—*‘ because that which may be known of 
God is manifest in them ; for God hath manifested it 
to them. For the invisible things of him, even his 
eternal Power and Godhead, are, since the creation of 
the world, perceived ; being understood by the things 
which are made’’? 


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